


Blood of Lions

by KaedeRavensdale



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fanart Included, Kel'thuzad as comic relief, M/M, Scourge, Stormwind's been destroyed a second time, apollonian dionysian dichotomy, controlling Genn, the Horde did the one thing that would set the Lich King off, unexpected allies and hard feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-04-30 05:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14489520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaedeRavensdale/pseuds/KaedeRavensdale
Summary: The burning of Teldrassil was not the end of the Horde's retaliation for the Siege of Lordaeron and Stormwind lies in ruin. With the identity of the new Lich King not widely known, Sylvanas never bothered to consider he might have connections to the Human capital and its King, nor that the city's fall would provoke a march by the Scourge which would make the Northrend Campaign seem like a time of peace. The Blood of Lions thirsts for vengeance, and the crumbling Alliance finds assistance from the last source they'd expect.After what she herself went through at the hands of Arthas, the Warchief should have known that the dead don't always go quietly.





	1. City in Dust

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of have a plan for where this is going but I also don't at the same time: we'll see how things go. The tagged relationship will come to relevance eventually.   
> This should be an interesting ride.

Thassarian had thought he’d seen destruction when Arthas had fallen on Lordaeron; when he and the other Knights of the Ebon Blade had been sent against the Scarlet Enclave; when they’d marched on Icecrown as a part of the Ashen Verdict; when the Cataclysm had happened; when the Legion had returned and set Azeroth ablaze. He’d been wrong. This, what he was looking at now, was what destruction truly was.

Stormwind had been obliterated. Every building had fallen. Every man, woman and child who hadn’t made it to the Deeprun Tram (and he was certain there’d been few of those) but had been lucky enough to survive the bombing had been slaughtered by the ground forces who’d come through in the wake of the Warchief’s new weapons. Blood stained the once white stones red and joined the dust and detritus in choking the canals. Carrion birds circled in the soot stained sky as the city burned; like Stratholme before it the Death Knight had little doubt it would continue to smolder for many years to come.

His saronite grieves crunched wood rock and bone underfoot as he made his way cautiously along the cratered streets towards Cathedral Square, alert for any signs of Horde forces which might still have been in the area picking over spoils. It could only have been hours, at most, since the attack had taken place and the echoes of the mass death which had occurred there were still thick enough in the air to agitate his Runeblades. Darkness twitched along the furthest reaches of his mind, an indescribable rage not his own threatening to break its bonds and overwhelm him at any moment. Bolvar Fordragon had had close connections to this city and its King, a fact that the Banshee Queen hadn’t stopped to consider before going through with the attack and the Lich King, to say the least, was furious.

When the Ebon Blade, through their connections with the Horde, had learned that Stormwind had been marked for death the Lord of the Scourge and the Death Lord both had been of the same mind on the matter, and so Thassarian had been immediately dispatched to warn the Alliance’s High King and assist in evacuating all that could be from the city. But their intelligence, it seemed, had been tragically out of date and by the time he’d arrived there’d been nothing he could do but stand among the dead.

**Find him!** Arthas’ mental voice had been one of blistering malice and little more, a tone easily adjusted to. Bolvar’s mental voice, when it had again begun invading their consciousness after the Demon’s incursion, had been of little emotion at all; kept carefully contained. Now it pierced his skull with such an incredible force of grief and horror and anguish that it nearly struck the Death Knight blind and he stumbled before regaining his balance. Trudging onwards. Turning the final corner into the square.

The once grand Cathedral of Light had been reduced to a mountain of twisted metal, fallen stone and broken glass. It was here that the Priests of the city, and likely their King alongside them, had made a desperate attempt to call upon the Light’s aid to shield them from the attack; to buy their people time. It was here that they’d failed. Grimly, forcing himself to focus only on what lay before him lest he be crushed beneath the Lich King’s steadily increasing upheaval, the Death Knight set to the work of overturning brick and beam; of searching the rubble for whatever might be left of Anduin Wrynn. If he didn’t find him here he’d move to the Keep and try again. If he didn’t find him there…

A hand, fingers mangled and bloody, protruded from the rubble some five yards from where he stood; at the mouth of what had once been the hypostyle hall where weekly worship had taken place. The tattered cuff of a dark stained overcoat stood out in stark contrast of blue and gold against the wreckage. Thassarian clambered onto and across the stone towards it and began the arduous process of uncovering the body and confirming its identity only to have the pulverized hand, disturbed by the displacement of the surrounding rubble under his weight, twitch.

Alive, but not for long. He dug faster, throwing rock and boulder aside without a care for the noise the pieces made when they clattered to the ground below. Exhuming the buried form piece by battered piece: a snapped arm, bent around at an angle which could never be construed as natural; a dislocated shoulder; a torso rent by deep gashes through which things meant to remain internal were exposed to open air; a face. “Your majesty!”

Blue eyes fluttered open, agonized and already beginning to glaze. Blood bubbled over thin lips as he struggled to speak, a shock of red against white skin; all that came out was a racking cough but it was still clear what the Priest was asking for. At most, he had an hour but with the pain he was in each minute surely felt like an eternity. And that was discounting the mental wounds of knowing he’d failed to protect the subjects he’d loved. Thassarian reached for his blades, but before he could draw either one his movements were forcibly arrested.

**No!** The Lich King’s voice was thunderous, his presence a boiling shadow at the end of the still tenuous link which threatened to spill over and fully restrain him. **Bring him to me. Do not let him die before we’ve spoken: do what you must to keep him awake.**

Bring the dying King to Icecrown? To the Lich King’s feet? Fordragon had demanded he be claimed dead with Arthas strictly for the sake of Anduin’s peace of mind, but now in his final moments he was to be confronted with the awful truth of his mentor’s fate? The once Paladin had also expressly forbidden further raising of the fallen into undeath, yet Thassarian couldn’t see such a scenario ending any other way.

**_Now, Death Knight!_** Again the threat of puppetry loomed large, that Dragon fire rage licking against his mind. Reluctant but preferring to remain by his own power he released his grip on his weapons.

“As you wish.” The young man in front of him spasmed, the only audible sound beyond the crackling flames the whistle of his labored breath; at least one of his lungs was punctured and well on its way to collapse. Drawing on the Runes carved into his armor and blades Thassarian opened a Death Gate to the citadel’s throne room and looked back down at the suffering King. “I’m sorry, Anduin.”

The sound made by the last of the Wrynns when he lifted him into his arms, broken bones snarling together and fresh blood splattering the ground, was what nightmares were made of. It was at times like these where the Death Knight found himself incredibly glad that sleep was an option instead of a necessity. The King lay limp in his arms and quaked, frigid from blood loss even without the aid of Icecrown’s biting temperatures. Blood dewed across his armor and dripped through the joints, hot and sticky against his skin. The Priest’s eyes were no longer discernable as blue and the Death Knight very much doubted he still had the capacity to see. His hearing, he suspected, would start going soon as well if it hadn’t already. His expression was becoming slack.

Plated fingers dug into one of the gashes and life flooded back into Anduin’s face, twisting it further in pain and pressing a whine against his teeth. Thassarian took none of the joy he might once have in the torture-all of this was torture; it had been torture not to put the boy, because that was really what he still was-out of his considerable misery. Without a word, he lowered the broken form to the ice at the foot of the frozen throne.

“Anduin.” It was difficult for Fordring to make himself audible through feet of solid ice but he forced his voice forwards regardless. The emotion in it was crippling: pain, regret, more of that burning anger.

The young lion weakly turned his head in the direction of the noise, blind eyes beginning a futile struggle to focus on its source. A whine and a cough pushed themselves through the blood which clogged his throat, and then “Bolvar…? …You…?”

“Yes, Anduin. I’m here.” Pairing tenderness with the Lich King was a prospect that was mind-bending, the scene playing out before him nothing short of bizarre, and the Death Knight found himself unable to look away. He stood there, smeared nearly head to toe in the Alliance King’s blood, and watched. “I would explain, make you understand what I had to do, but there isn’t time. _You_ don’t have time.”

“…Time?”

“I won’t force you to stay here.” Though he wanted to, badly; that much would have been obvious even to a geist or ghoul. “But I offer you the choice. You don’t have to die now, like this.”

Another whimper, weaker now. The final string holding him there had frayed clear through to its last thread and now threatened to snap.

“You have a place in my Scourge but you have to make that choice. I won’t shackle you here if it means you’ll suffer against your will; won’t deny you the Light if you wish to go to it.” Royal blood froze against the ice. “Anduin, can you still hear me?” A small noise in response. “Choose.”

Again faded eyes struggled to focus, pearled lids blinking hard. He gasped twice more before forcing out the broken phrases “failed them” and “yes” and going limp with an unmistakable rattle.

The King of Stormwind was dead.

That grief and rage reared upwards into a roaring tide and the ice which bound the Lich King to his throne shattered, deep cracks spiraling outwards in all directions, but the shards held fast. Snow, dislodged from the spines of saronite which curled overhead, tumbled to the ground with a soft crackle. The heavy chains swung in the wind.

**Take him to Kel’thuzad.** The burning yellow gaze, the image distorted now, never left the Priest’s ravaged corpse. **The Arch Lich will have his orders by the time you arrive.**

Blood-matted golden hair, escaped from the blue band which held it pinned back, waved limply in the harsh winds. Flakes of snow settled against his cooling cheeks and slowly freezing eyes. With Bolvar’s gaze a blazing weight against his shoulders, the Death Knight carefully pushed them closed before once more lifting the body from the ground. Buried in the depths of the seething knot of foreign emotion, Thassarian though he sensed a glint of thanks for the gesture of respect before the Lich King fully withdrew.

Alone, Anduin’s head limp against his breastplate, he trudged through the too familiar halls of Icecrown Citadel to the Ramparts where Naxxramas had been docked. Kel’thuzad and two of his Cultist pets met him at the entrance.

“Ah,” skeletal, claw like fingers ran delicately along the dead King’s broken cheekbone, “so this is our Master’s son in all but blood. Quite a mess Sylvanas has made of him.”

Thassarian set his jaw. “Making messes of things is what the Banshee Queen is best at.”

“We’ll take him from here,” the Lich said, motioning at his lackeys with one hand and using the other to stroke the fur of the cat draped around his neck like a purring scarf. “Do be careful with him, you two. With our Master’s current mood so much as an extra bruise on Wrynn’s body will get you thrown into the acid bath, regardless of the fact he can’t feel it anymore.” Handling the body as if it was liable to crumble apart at any moment, the pair carried him away into the dark.

“What do you intend to make of him?” Thassarian couldn’t fathom a Priest-granted a Priest who had, on a few occasions, dressed in plate and attempted to act like a Paladin-being terribly affective as a Death Knight.

“Something befitting of his talents in magic and diplomacy. Lana’thel yet has a final service to render the Lich King.” Kel’thuzad said. “I’m certain that by now, given the Master’s emotional upheaval, everyone’s aware of what happened but it’s best you report to the Death Lord regardless. As the Ebon Blade is no longer technically a part of the Scourge I’ve little doubt she’ll expect news from her own sources.” Leaving the Death Knight standing in the rime and snow he turned and floated back into Naxxramas.

The last of the Wrynns had been taken to the Plague Quarter and now lay atop a hastily cleared stone table, the tattered bloodied clothing he’d worn cut away and discarded on the ground. A Necrosurgeon was hard at work putting his body back together for reanimation while two acolytes had busied themselves with washing away the dirt, soot and drying blood which covered him with the closest thing to clean rags they’d been able to find.

“How long until you’re finished, Blackwood?”

The Human briefly raised his eyes from his work, threading a string through a long gash which cut a jagged angle along the King’s hip and stomach and pulling the skin closed. “Not much longer, Sir. He’ll be ready for reanimation in another few minutes.”

“I’ll expect everything in place, then, when I’ve returned with the necessary reagents.”

“Of course, Arch Lich.”

Kel’thuzad left the room and swept down the hall to another, maneuvering the shelves and pulling down the proper herbs stones and powders along with the phial of the Blood Queen’s blood. After so long as the leader of the Cult of the Damned, both as a Lich and prior to that as a mortal Necromancer, the ban on the craft had been a blow he’d still been struggling to adjust to. It would be nice to have the chance to raise something from scratch again. And having it be such a prestigious project as giving the King of Stormwind and much loved surrogate son of his Master his second birth as Lana’thel’s replacement, first Human San’layn, made it all the sweeter.

The Lich could already tell the King would have little trouble capturing the cold hearts of those around him; when not broken apart like a dropped porcelain doll it was clear his looks were devastating. Yes, a San’layn really was the best choice: they always had been the most elegant among the Scourge.

Blackwood, true to his word, had finished the reconstruction by the time he made it back to the chamber. Broken to shards and splinters bones had been pulled back into their proper place. Livid red gashes leaking their internal organs had been replaced with neat black stiches. The accumulated grime of the fallen King’s decimated city had been cleaned away and the body beneath it was still warm; the blood hadn’t even had the chance to freeze in his veins yet. Truly a special occasion.

“You make for yourself a marvelous impression already, Blood King, and you’ve yet to even be awoken.” With careful consideration and an eye for detail the Arch Lich set the stones, sifted the powder, poured the blood and lit the herbs. He wouldn’t stand for this going wrong due to an oversight made from being out of practice. “Quite remarkable you are. And even more so will you soon be.”

The words of the spell were comforting in their familiarity; a litany of phrases he’d truly believed he’d never get to say again. The spined syllables warped and curled as they fell from his long-since-vanished lips. Power, thick and necrotic and glorious, crackled in the air. The herbs smoked. The powders flashed. The Runes etched into the stones glowed. The blood flowed across the stone table’s surface with seeking intent and invaded the corpse through the skin; death white rapidly giving way to a charcoaled grey.

First he twitched. Then he jerked. Then, as the transformation and magic both fully set in, there came the reaction. The same reaction always given by the newly returned. A violent death rattle of new breath; a sudden surge of motion. The Human sat up with a jarring speed, red eyes flying open, and released a tortured shriek which nearly brought the necropolis’ roof down atop their heads. His mouth stretched into a pained rictus of glinting fangs as growths of bone ripped through his skin, rapidly growing into a sweeping stretch of bat-like wings. They flapped wildly, spraying the room down with droplets of blood, but did nothing to prevent him from collapsing back onto the stone with a hiss of disgruntled confusion and pain.

Kel’thuzad could sympathize. He went through similar wracking agony every time he had to respawn from his phylactery in the wake of another group of pinhead ‘heroes’. It was just one of those things that came with being counted among the ranks of the unliving. Hopefully once a few hours had passed and his mind had had a chance to catch up with him-provided he was still sane-the drooling would stop.

Come to think of it, that was probably a sign the new San’layn was hungry. “Feed him, Blackwood.”

The Necrosurgeon looked at him blankly. “Sir?”

“Blood, you idiot!” Seizing the Necromancer by the arm Kel’thuzad dragged the man closer to the table and shoved his wrist into the San’layn’s open mouth; the fallen King needed no further encouragement and his jaws snapped shut like a Silverbrooke trap. The Necromancer’s wrist wasn’t enough to keep him satisfied for long-that or the man’s yelping had upset him-because it wasn’t more than a minute later that Wrynn had torn out his throat.

“From his table manners alone you’d never know he was a royal.” Considering the fact that Anduin was currently busy eating the man’s spine the Arch Lich supposed there wasn’t much use in attempting to resurrect the Necromancer as well. Pity. He’d had talent. “He’ll pass out again soon: new undead always do. Once he does clean him up and take him to the Crimson Halls; the remnants of the Dark Fallen should be in place to greet their new King when he wakes. And while you’re at it make sure he’s dressed in something appropriate for his origin and station. The Lich King will surely want to see him and he can’t be dressed in nothing but the North Wind!”

“Yes Arch Lich.” The remaining Necromancers said, trying very hard not to look at the mutilated body on the floor.

Anduin had stopped snarling and now lay coiled up on the slab, draping a wing across his body as if in a search for warmth he no longer needed. “Oh, he’s precious.”

He didn’t stick around long enough to find out whether or not his underlings agreed with his opinion and didn’t really care. Mr. Bigglesworth, still draped across his neck, mewed and the Kel’thuzad scratched behind his ears as he floated away down the hall.


	2. The Fallen Lion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got everything worked out faster than expected: enjoy.

“We were too late?” Darion Mograine already knew, of course. They all knew. Their intelligence had been accurate, but only if looked at weeks prior to when it was and the former High Lord suspected that that was by design. Though he doubted Sylvanas had considered the Lich King might personally seek to intervene through them-he wasn’t certain she knew a Lich King even still existed, let alone his identity-he did suspect the Warchief had considered that those among the Ebon Blade who still had ties to the Alliance would seek to stop her plan.

She’d been right about that much. Even unnecessary as it had been to get them involved in the matter Fordragon’s forceful interest in the situation had come as a shock to everyone, as had his grief: to know that the Lich King was even still capable of emotion after so long having felt nothing of the kind under Arthas… “Stormwind has fallen? The High King of the Alliance is dead?”

“The Horde had already come through by the time I arrived, but seemed to have withdrawn from the city itself.” Thassarian said. “It looked like Stratholme; it likely will for years to come.”

“You found the body?”

“He was still alive, Darion. Barely.” The Death Knight’s expression dropped to even grimmer depths. “I took him to the Frozen Throne. Bolvar offered him undeath.”

“Offered?”

“It was a choice, yes, though admittedly not much of one: undeath or death.” A mirthless chuckle. “Such prospects.”

“Will the body be returned to his people or-?”

“He chose undeath, Darion.”

His armor rattled as he stiffened. To choose undeath, to choose an eternity of suffering among the damned when peace was an option just moments at hand, when there was no one you needed to trade yourself for and nothing to salvage, was unfathomable to all but the maddest Necromancers. An affront, in many ways, to those like them who’d had that peace ripped away and had been forced into the Lich King’s service. Those who no longer belonged in the living world and were agonized for having to stay there.

“I’ve met him only briefly,” a young Prince with eyes deep blue against the snow of the tournament grounds; a young King with those same eyes, now without that hopeful glint and underlined with bruise-like shadows, “but I hadn’t marked him down as either a zealot or a fool. What did he think to gain? Power? Revenge? Or was it simply cowardice: a fear of the mercy dying is?”

The silent plea to be put down as he lay broken against the stones of the ruined cathedral. His last words: failed them. Those things didn’t line up with power, cowardice or revenge. “I can’t speak for his motives. He wasn’t able to speak very much by the time I got him there.” That he’d been able to speak at all had been something of a miracle.

“So we’ll have a new Death Knight here for training, then?” A tinge of disgust had invaded his metallic tone. ‘Here for training’, as if he had no intention of ever seeing Anduin as one of them. Scourge, not Ebon Blade. Set apart.

“From what I’ve heard of their march on Lordaeron the High King was not very gifted with the blade.” Thassarian said. “The Lich King seems to know this; perhaps he trained him as a child, or at least attempted to. He’s not to be a Death Knight.”

“Then what, Thassarian, if not our concern?”

“In the wake of the assault on the Citadel, it seems that there was something salvageable of Lana’thel after all.” He said. “Kel’thuzad has been ordered to raise Anduin Wrynn as the new Blood King.”

“A San’layn?” disgust had shifted to horror. “The small handful of Dark Fallen left from Arthas' Scourge are already hard to contain. A carnal monster like that would be impossible to keep from wreaking havoc: flesh, blood, bone and soul he’ll eat this world through to its core!”

“I don’t think the Lich King wishes to contain him.” It was another thing that both of them knew-rage like what they’d felt wasn’t something simply let drop and walked away from-but before that moment neither one of them had dared voice it. “I think he intends to move against Sylvanas. And with what the Horde under her command has done…”

“You’d be in favor of that decision?”

“The Exodar besieged. Teldrassil aflame. Stormwind obliterated. That’s not soldiers, Darion, that’s civilians. Children. How much difference is there, now, between her and Arthas?”

“Very little. And it’s the interest, the obligation, of the Ebon Blade to depose undead tyrants.” A beat of silence. “Wasn’t your sister living in Stormwind?”

Again the Death Knight grit his teeth, forcibly keeping his voice in control. “Yes.”

“What survivors there were, if there were any, went to Ironforge?”

“I’d assume so.”

“Go.” Darion’s boots clattered against the Ebon Hold’s floor. “Find your family. There’s nothing more that any of us can do here for the time being and I’m sure the Death Lord wouldn’t begrudge you that.”

The blue-toned light of the flames flickering in the skull brackets threw odd shadows along the black stone walls. In the darkness to his right a geist bounded passed, off to see to some repair order or another on the Death Lord’s order. He had little doubt that he should expect a call from the Blood Elf soon enough on the matter-reporting, after all, ever trickled upwards-but for the time being he was left to his own devices and planned to make the most of it. Ascending to the necropolis’ second level and walking across the balcony, he leaned his bracers against the unrelenting stone railing.

If the Lich King’s forces marched on the Horde he already knew that the Ebon Blade would go with them: Horde or not, the Death Lord agreed with Sylvanas’ way of doing things about as much as she had with Hellscream’s and the disrespect the Banshee Queen had shown to their order by torturing one of their own hadn’t been forgotten. Where the other ‘neutral’ Factions like the Kirin Tor and the Argent Dawn would only draw further away from the desperate, flagging remnants of the Alliance, would stand by as they were murdered-not just soldiers but civilians, as Thassarian had said-in order to save themselves, the Ebon Blade and the Scourge along with them would offer their frozen hand. And the Lich King would again become a hero.

What a world.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Though his build had nothing on his father’s Anduin Wrynn was as stubborn as an ox and considerably stronger than he looked. At the moment those two factors had combined to work against him and were making it next to impossible for the Rogue to keep a grip on his struggling regent._

_“Your majesty,” getting him through the city’s streets and down into the tram, collecting whatever civilians they came across as they went, hadn’t been a trouble but now that he was attempting to drag the man onto the nearly full cars Shaw suddenly felt like he was trying to make a horse drink “you need to get on the tram!”_

_The young man’s blue eyes were dilated and wild though what was in them wasn’t panic or fear; not for himself. Shaw almost wished it was. This all would have been easier, then._

_“I am not going anywhere!” He snarled it, and in that moment he looked more like Varian than ever before. “I will not flee here and leave my people to die when I can do something to shield them from what I’ve brought down on their heads! To buy them time! They need me in the cathedral!”_

_“Your majesty-!” The Priest managed to twist himself free and bolted. Shaw lunged forward and caught him by the neck of his overcoat. “King Anduin, this is-!”_

_He never got to say ‘madness’. Anduin rounded on him with the Shadow in his eyes and a spell on his lips and the next thing the Spymaster knew the tram was halfway to the Dwarven capital and it was far too late to jump off and go back on foot. Empty handed and surrounded by traumatized civilians, the King vanished back onto Stormwind’s doomed streets, the leader of SI: 7 was forced to confront the reality of the fact that the Line of Wrynn had ended._

Keeping just how able he was in the darkest school of Priestly knowledge had been clever of the King. Very clever. Had it not led to him being ill prepared for such a trick and subsequently cost Anduin his life Mathias might have been able to appreciate that fact much more. The hour long journey from Stormwind to Ironforge was almost at end. The crying and panicked wails had slowly ebbed away into soft sobbing which was barely audible over the clunking of the wheels against the rails, and even those had since become few and far between. Shaw sat slumped against one of the roofing arches, head tilted back and unfocused stare on the blur of grey and black passing overhead.

He was a soldier and this wasn’t how the night was supposed to end. He’d been willing to leave Stormwind only because he knew that Anduin would have to be bodily dragged onto the tram and held down for the duration of the trip to prevent him from leaping off the back end. It hadn’t been meant to end in him being shipped out of the city alone, but it had.

Perhaps there was some good in that. Someone who’d witnessed at least a portion of what had happened had made it out and could better assist in coordinating efforts to rescue survivors and reclaim what was left of Stormwind. They’d rebuilt before; they would again. And it also meant that SI: 7-its members beyond the lost Capital at least-hadn’t been beheaded and the Alliance still had a valuable weapon against the Horde. Alone it wouldn’t be enough but with luck and timing, clever management and allies scrounged up from somewhere they might still stand a chance of a Hail Mary.

It would be bloody and they’d without a doubt have to fight to the last but it would be worth it in the end if it meant that the Alliance would have a future. There would be time to mourn once all of this was over.

A rustle of motion passed through the beleaguered refugees around him and he turned his head. Light shone brightly from the tram’s opposite end, the opening rushing up on them rapidly. Grabbing the metal arch he’d been leaning against Shaw pulled himself to his feet, balancing on stiff limbs as the tram shot out of the tunnel and slowed to a hissing stop.

“Alright, they’re here! Blow tha bloody thing!” The bellow of a plainly Dwarven voice, abruptly followed by the concussive blast of detonated charges and the grind of tumbling stone. Numbly it dawned on him that any trams behind theirs would have been drowned by the water rushing in from the lake the tunnel passed beneath.

Numbly, because deep down he knew there were no other trams.

While the Spymaster struggled to adjust his vision to the bright light there was another clamor as those around him began to file off the tram. A shout of “Thass!” and the clang of armor plating before a metallic voice responded with “Leryssa!”

A Death Knight? What was a member of the Ebon Blade doing there?

“He doesn’t have good news or anythin’ but ya should still be glad he’s here.” He looked down as the Dwarf who’d called out the order to blow the tunnel walked up to him. “Had he na threatened ta turn us all inta Ghouls for it we’d have blown that entrance before ya got here. We can’t have tha Horde taken anymore o our cities.” Small eyes panned over the group and the harsh expression beneath the beard fell. “Oh, Magni’s beard, the High King. Is he…?”

Mathias looked away, doing his best to ignore the clang of saronite as the Death Knight approached. “Yes.” He said. “Anduin refused to leave his people and when I tried to remove him by force he turned the Shadow on me.”

“The Council of Three Hammers will want to hear from you, then.”

He’d been expecting something of the sort. “The sooner the better. If there are survivors-.”

“There aren’t.” There was the finality of the frozen north in the Death Knight’s tone; Thassarian was his name if he recalled correctly. Having him so close left every one of the Spymaster’s muscles tense: the Ebon Blade had done much for the Alliance prior to the arrival of the Legion, but their attack on the Argent Dawn hadn’t escaped notice, nor had it been fully forgiven. “Their gambit failed, Mathias. Stormwind has been flattened and smolders in ruin. Anyone who survived the bombing was slaughtered by the troops who moved through later.”

“And how would you know that?” the woman clinging to the Death Knight’s arm glared daggers at him but Shaw ignored her.

“The Ebon Blade rushed to warn the King when we learned of Sylvanas’ plan but our intelligence was outdated and when I arrived in Stormwind the city was already lost. Knowing that I would likely find my sister here, if she survived, I made my way to Ironforge.”

“Immediately?”

The Death Knight’s smile had all the good humor of a rock to the head. “More or less.”

That could mean a lot of things. Shaw narrowed his eyes. Thassarian stared back at him, expression unreadable. It was ultimately the Spymaster who blinked first-largely because the undead didn’t need to blink-and turned back to the Dwarf.

“Lead the way.” Shaw kept an eye on the hulking Death Knight until they’d turned the corner and he could be certain he wouldn’t attempt to follow.

Leryssa reclaimed her brother’s attention abruptly by knocking on his armor. “I haven’t seen you since the Legion came!” Her tone was scolding. “You promised me at Naxxanar that we’d be a family again once you’d finished with the Scourge, yet you never came back after Sargeras’ forces were rebuffed. Barely even sent a letter.”

“Things have been complicated, Leryssa, these past few months. If I had been able to return to Stormwind, to you, I would have.”

“What stopped you?” The Death Knight remained silent. “Thass!”

“The Ebon Blade hangs in a strange place right now.” He said. “We haven’t rejoined the Scourge but-.”

“But?” she cut in, alarmed. “What do you mean ‘but’?”

“The new Lich King and the Death Lord formed a tenuous alliance between the Ebon Blade and the Scourge in order to combat the Legion. It’s yet to dissolve.” He said. “In the wake of what Sylvanas has done I’m not certain that it will. The Lich King is…displeased.”

“Why would he be? What connection could he possibly have to Stormwind?”

Thassarian winced. “I’m not at liberty to reveal that.” He said. “I need to be getting back. Stay here, where you’ll be-.”

“Safe?” Leryssa scoffed. “Icecrown is safer than this, Thass! Darnassus was destroyed and the Exodar is going that way. Every minor hold in Kalimdor has already been lost. Stormwind has fallen. The High King is dead. What is there to stop them from coming here?”

“Northrend is no place for the living.”

“The Cult of the Damned are living.”

“You’re no Necromancer.”

His sister crossed her arms and set her jaw, their relation in that moment undeniable. “I’m sure I can learn. And if that’s what it takes to convince you-.”

“Leryssa-.”

“I’m not staying here.” She said. “You either take me with you or I find a way to follow you there by my own power. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. You know that.”

“Yes,” he said, “I do.” And with those words he sounded every bit like the exhausted older sibling he was. “You can’t stay on Acherus. And I’m not going to have you poking around in Icecrown citadel.”

Leryssa beamed, though the shadows of what she’d seen still haunted her eyes. “I’ll behave. I promise.”

He could already tell this wouldn’t end well.


	3. The Wolf and the Hammer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter than i'd prefer but it gets done what it needs to

The light of the heavy lanterns which hung from the ceiling shed a yellow pall over the room which was wan and sallow. Magni’s determination not to return to Ironforge in favor of continuing to act as the voice of Azeroth left the throne still standing empty. The banners baring the red and gold shield and hammer of the Dwarven Kingdom rippling almost imperceptibly against the walls. Seated in high backed chairs around a large table were the three members of the Council: Muradin of the Bronzebeard Clan, Falstad of the Wildhammer Clan, and Moira of the Dark Iron Clan. All three looked over as he entered with the Dwarf who’d met him at the tram station.

“Spymaster.” Moira was the first to speak, though only by a small margin. Concern lined all three of their faces. “Where’s Anduin?”

They’d been friends, bonding over a shared class and Anduin’s having saved her from death at Varian’s hand when Ironforge had nearly descended into civil war. The reminder was stark; perhaps baring Velen and Greymane she’d been the closest to the King.

By the Light, how was Genn going to react to this?

“The House of Wrynn has fallen.” Even with years of death and killing behind him and having gone through torture and betrayal, imprisonment and worse Shaw still had to force himself to hold her gaze. “The High King is dead.”

“Dead? Anduin is dead?” he voice threatened to crack but held strong. Her hands slammed against the table as she rose abruptly from her chair. “Then wha’ are ya doin’ here, Spymaster? Abandoned yer King ta save yer own sorry ass? I’d never ‘ave pegged ya as a coward!”

“ _Moira_!” Muradin yelped, shocked at her outburst.

“I did _not_ abandon anyone, Thaurissan.” Shaw growled, bristling. “I’d appreciate you not suggesting such again.”

“What happened, Mathias?” Falstad asked.

“The High King ordered the city’s Priests to prayer for the Light’s protection against the Horde’s attack; he intended to lead them but I wasn’t about to allow him to put himself in that much danger and dragged him to the Deeprun Tram.”

“Then why isn’t he with ya?”

“Because he turned on me, Muradin. When the mind control broke I was halfway here.” He said. “Benedictus must have been teaching him Shadow Magic in secret; that or he started dabbling in it on his own at some point. Spells that strong only come from years of practice.”

“He died because he wouldn’t leave his people; because he wanted ta protect ‘em.” Moira sank back into her chair. “True ta yerself ta the end, weren’t ya? Ya idiot.”

“How did tha Horde get close enough ta do this? They’d ‘ave needed ships and zeppelins ta ‘ave transported those weapons. How did no one notice ‘em?”

“Their Shaman.” Shaw said. “Living by the ocean, we’re used to seeing fog. What we experienced in the hours before the attack seemed a bit thicker than usual but no one thought anything of it and that was our mistake. By the time we saw their fleet there were only minutes to react.”

The clanging of the harbor bell had been replaced by the clamorous clatter of alarms, setting soldiers running to their stations and civilians running through the streets. Anduin had taken command then with more confidence than he ever had before that moment but in the end it had been for nothing. If what the Death Knight had reported was true the Horde’s weaponry had proved stronger than whatever protection the Light had granted. There had been no survivors among those who had remained in the city. By now the Banshee Queen’s war machine would have consumed the surrounding settlements: Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood. They likely hadn’t fared any better. Had any of the citizens who’d lived in those places been taken prisoner? What torture were they being put through now; would they be left to, all but certainly, now that the Alliance hung in tatters?

How long until they made it to Ironforge? Would they be able to stop this city from falling too? Probably not. Not in the long run. What did they have left? The Kal’dorei had withdrawn to Val’sharah and severed all contact. He and forty civilians, alongside a small handful of SI: 7 and guards who’d been dispatched north was all that remained of Stormwind. Cornered in their ship the Draeni were likely planning to abandon Azeroth entirely. They had the Gnomes and the Dwarves, the Worgen, one city and the ruins of two more one of which the enemy knew far more intimately than they did. On top of that, they were headless: five racial leaders with no higher station to serve as a deciding vote.

The first thing that would have to be done was to appoint a new High King, and the most likely candidate for that was also the most likely to lead them to their final ruin: all in the name of a vengeance which would mean nothing if achieving it meant sacrificing any more than they already had.

Perhaps it already was worth nothing.

But there was no choice. “Does King Greymane know?”

“We sent a message through ta Gilneas as soon as we got tha warnin’ from Stormwind but ‘aven’t heard anythin’ back yet.” Faldran said. “We’re gettin’ ready ta send a mage along with tha message!”

“There won’t be need for that.” Golden eyes glinting and hackles raised the King of Gilneas stalked into the room, flanked on either side by Darius Crowley and Ivar Bloodfang. “It took more time than expected for our Mages to open the necessary portals to get everyone out of Ironforge.”

“Out o’ Ironforge? Wha’ are ya attemptin’ ta suggest Greymane?” Muradin demanded, the other members of the Council reacting with similar outrage. “We’re na abandonin’ this city ta tha Horde!”

“Ironforge is fortified, Genn! What are you thinking by suggesting we withdraw?”

“Fortified?” Bestial eyes speared him through, black gums peeling back over sharp teeth. “So was Stormwind.” Greymane snarled. “This is the High King’s decision, Shaw.”

“There is no ‘High King’ anymore, ya great fur ball!” Moira snapped. “Anduin is dead!”

Genn’s ears pinned back, eyes briefly widening and then narrowing again. “Yet another crime Sylvanas has to pay for.” He said. “What use is ‘fortified’ in the face of the Horde’s new weapons? We’re like fish in a can sitting here: hitting this single target is all they have to do to destroy the Alliance completely! Moving north will give us breathing distance and a chance to call in help!”

Perhaps there was some merit to that; if they left before they were forced to flee they’d have plenty of time to move all the necessary supplies, and spreading across the multiple reclaimed cities in Silverpine Forest, Tirisfall and Gilneas would force the Horde to work harder to truly eradicate them. Not only that but it would buy them more than breathing room, it would buy them time.

Giving up an entrenched position was a move Sylvanas wouldn’t expect them to make.

“Who do you expect to call on for help, Genn? Velen can’t spare any forces or he risks his own people. Tyrande blames the Alliance for what happened. A neutral Faction like the Kirin Tor wouldn’t risk tearing itself apart.”

“In the wake of what Sylvanas has done that may no longer be the case.” Darius said. “If there was any doubt left of her willingness to kill civilians it’s gone now. Once the Horde is finished with us, they’ll turn on the Alliance portions of the neutral Factions.”

“And there’s that Mage.” Ivar growled. “We know Proudmoore will help; she was chomping at the bit even before the Broken Shore.”

What did that leave them with? Another voice too blinded by revenge to think clearly? A single, all be it very powerful Mage? Perhaps, if they were lucky, Kul’tiras would lend some aid but the Horde was certain to have set up sea blockades. Mightiest navy on Azeroth or not, they might not be able to make it through in time.

“We have no choice but to try.” Genn said. “We can’t just let them get away with this!”

“He’s right.” There were no good choices here, but the one which would at best buy them time to find a chink in the Horde’s armor and at worst prolong their suffering was clear. “We should withdraw while we have the chance and throw the Horde off-guard. Split off ambassadors to what forces we can and send word through other means to those we won’t be able to personally reach: the Argent Dawn, the Kirin Tor, Kul’tiras, the Wyrmrest Accord: everyone who might listen and have some sympathy.” Even if they couldn’t truly be trusted when concerning passed actions. “Thassarian might not have left yet-.”

“ _We will not work with the undead!”_ The Worgen’s howl echoed thunderously off the surrounding walls. “ _Ebon Blade, Forsaken or Scourge they’ve only ever proven themselves as monsters: they’ll turn on us when we’re at our weakest, nothing more!”_

Shaw couldn’t deny that he himself held similar doubts in regards to their integrity but still “desperate times, Genn.”

“Times will never be desperate enough for measures like that.”

“Some time it took fer ya ta start actin’ as if ya’ve been named High King.” Resentment was plain in Moira’s voice. “Anduin’s na even cold yet.”

Yellow, lamp-like eyes turned on her. “Have you any better ideas, Dwarf?”

“I’m startin’ ta ‘ave tha idea, Greymane, that yer glad he’s dead. Glad that his want fer peace can’t get in yer way anymore.”

It was only the quick action of the other two Worgen that kept the Gilnean King from pouncing on the Dark Iron. “ _I saw him as a second son! How dare you make the suggestion that I wanted him dead!”_

“Now is not the time for this.” Shaw didn’t yell; he didn’t need to. His tone was sharp as any blade and cleaved the growing argument apart. “We can grieve and fight when we’re free to worry about something _other_ than survival! Start this now and the Horde will be at our gates before you’ve finished, not to mention that internal fissures now really _will_ kill us all!”

Genn was still snarling, teeth bared and hackles on end. Surprisingly it was Moira who backed down.

“Yer right, Mathias.” She said. “Anduin would want us ta worry about circlin’ tha wagons instead o snappin’ at each other’s throats. Since he’s na here ta do it, I’ll do it for ‘im. If ya really think withdrawin’ is fer the best then I say aye.”

“I still don’t like tha thought,” Muradin grumbled, “but if it might stand a chance at keepin’ tha Horde from feelin’ tha need ta blow this city ta hell than I say aye too.”

“No point in disagreein’ when I’m already outvoted, is there?” Falstad grunted. “Ya ‘ave all those portals ready, Greymane, or do we ‘ave ta sit around waitin’?”

“We had everything in order before we left.” Darius said. “We’re ready to start moving people and supplies as soon as you are.”


	4. Who's Watching Whom Anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so there's some head canons which come out in this chapter  
> Firstly that due to not being fully trusted by either faction and everything they've gone through together the Ebon Blade is considerably close knit. Secondly, stemming largely from how the DK campaign in Legion ended, despite no longer being the High Lord Darion is still protective of the Order to the point that he's more concerned with it than anything else.  
> And yes, the Death Lord is modeled after my DK.  
> Anduin will reappear next chapter in case anyone was wondering.

He’d known it was only a matter of time before the Death Lord called for him, the only real question had been how long of a time. Darion had remained on that balcony for maybe half an hour in silence, the only sound the hiss and whistle of the wind and snow through the horns on his helm as he stared at the glacier far below, watching the desiccated forms of mindless ghouls wander about in a manner which was no longer quite as mindless as before, before he caught the distant sound of clattering armor drawing ever closer. Once the footsteps joined him on the balcony he turned and met the other Death Knight’s burning gaze.

“The Death Lord wants to see me, I take it?”

“To say the least and I don’t think it’s simply for a report. With what the Banshee Bitch has done I think we’re all concerned for His reaction.” Koltira made an attempt to make the fact that he was scanning the balcony discrete and failed at it spectacularly. Beneath his helm, Darion’s lips twitched into a brief smirk. Why they still bothered he didn’t think he’d ever know: the true extent of their relationship had been obvious to anyone who bothered to take the time to think about it since Thassarian had broken him out of Scarlet custody back before they’d been freed from the Scourge. “Where’s Thassarian?”

There it was. “Ironforge, looking for his sister among the survivors.” If there were any. “He should be back soon enough. Its best you wait for him in case of the worst. He’ll want a ‘friend’ to lean on.”

“Of course.” The other Death Knight drew himself up to his full height. “His closest friend.”

“Close indeed.” Muttered under his breath as he walked away, the words rendered inaudible by the clatter of his footsteps and the muffling of his helm.

He found Kiara Blackpyre leaned casually against the crumbling edge of the war table, the sickly glow of the Rune circle on the floor casting her long blue hair and the frost bitten tips of her ears in strange relief. As always, Icebringer and Soulreaper were belted to her waist: all that remained of Frostmourne.

“Thassarian spoke with you?” she turned her head enough to peer at him over one pointed shoulder. “And he’s gone to find his sister?”

“Yes.” Darion said. “He should be returning from Ironforge soon. Koltira is waiting for him.”

“You suggested that of him?”

“He’d have done it either way.” He said. “It’s for the best, should things go badly.”

“Let’s hope that they don’t.” Her glowing eyes returned to the map which had been spread across the table in front of her. The whole of Azeroth stretched across the flaking paper in tones of sepia. Markings and effigies had been placed across it in what looked much more like disarray than any intelligible pattern. An X over Stormwind. A flame over Darnassus. A sweep of red pins and a huddle of blue ones. “Things are getting bad, Darion; compared to this the Legion was nothing. And she won’t be content with simply bringing the Alliance to its knees: we both know Sylvanas well enough not to be that…naive.” From the set of her features ‘stupid’ was the term she’d have preferred to use.

“Yes.” The Banshee Queen was vengeful and vindictive and had already, during the Cataclysm, shown herself willing to force undeath on fallen combatants. The Alliance represented, among other things, an obstacle to her people’s assured place in a world they no longer belonged in. Sylvanas wouldn’t call the Horde back once they’d chewed the opposing Faction to the bone: she’d turn on the hanging ties to it which the neutral factions held, the Ebon Blade among them. “We do.”

“Bolvar Fordragon is not Arthas Menethil. Having said that, the Scourge under him is anything but harmless. Still, at the moment, they are not our concern.” She said. “You understand?”

“It’s been decided, then? The agreement made by the Lich King to keep the Scourge contained in Northrend is defunct? They’re going to march?” Aimed, presumably, at the Horde alone but that was no solid assurance that innocent civilians wouldn’t be ground to dust beneath the turning wheels of their war machine. “And we’re going to help them?”

The sallow glow of the Runes on the floor and the numerous flickering candles holding the far corners of the map down left her fennec features wan. “Yes.” She said, pushing off from the table and beginning to pace a slow circuit around the room. “It’s odd, isn’t it? We broke away from the Scourge at Light’s Hope, swore we’d never tie ourselves to their mantle again, and brought the Lich King to his retribution and our revenge. With that purpose gone we restyled ourselves as the jailor of the Jailor of the Damned. Took up the burden of standing between him and the rest of the world. Of preventing Azeroth from falling to undeath. Now that threat comes from the Forsaken, not the Scourge, but our duty remains the same: we must do what the living cannot.”

She’d changed since those first bloody days of the Scarlet Massacre, back when their positions had been switched and it had been him at the Ebon Blade’s helm. Grim as it all was, Darion couldn’t help but feel a measure of pride in that regard. “Of course, Death Lord.”

“I do have a job for you, Mograine.” Koltira had hinted at as much. “And his name is ‘Blood King’ Anduin Wrynn.”

Somewhat taken aback, the former High Lord drew himself straighter. “It’s beginning to look as if you won’t be in need of my report.” He said. “Did Thassarian speak to you before he spoke to me?”

“No. It was the Lich King himself who beat you to the punch on the matter.” She said. “Once the fallen King of Stormwind wakes up he’ll need training and though the majority of that will be seen to by the Scourge Bolvar has requested the aid of the Ebon Blade in regards to Rune-work, forging and a final attempt at teaching him to be a bit less…clumsy on the field of battle. His decision to send him to us instead of Razuvius is a show of good faith and trust between them and our Order, as he is a Diplomat of sorts.”

“A show of keeping an eye on us you mean to say.”

Kiara’s smile was brief and sharp. “As a show of good faith in return, and in recognition of the fact that he’s the Lich King’s ‘son’, he’ll be afforded the very best that we have to offer both as a trainer and a guard: there’s little reason to believe Anduin’s apparent tendency to engender overprotectiveness in those around him will have ended now that he can simply be sewn back together and reanimated like Krastinov’s doll.” She said. “And who better for the job than one of the Four Horsemen?”

So he was going to be saddled with the little coward. “Is this some form of punishment?”

“You’ve done nothing wrong that I can remember. Is there something I should be reminded of?” that statement was only mostly playful and her expression quickly settled back into something far more serious. “No, it’s not a punishment. Take it as a sign that we share concerns over all of this: I’m sure you have them. Gentle natures don’t have much of a tendency to survive reanimation; it’s concerning that he asked for what was done if only because of all the possible motivations and consequences and how far reaching they could all be; and a Lightforsaken San’layn of all things? The only thing more destructive than one of them is the Lich King himself.”

When she’d said they shared concerns she hadn’t been kidding.

“If it were at all possible, Darion, I’d do it myself but with everything that’s required to manage the Ebon Blade-especially now that we’ll be keeping an unleashed Scourge in check-I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him nearly enough as will need be.” Her nails clicked against Icebringer’s hilt. “The Lich King hasn’t left the Frozen Throne though I’ve little doubt he could have broken free if he’d wished to. Limited as his reach is compared to Arthas’, if he’s going to command the Scourge beyond Northrend it will be through using him as a conduit. If he’s going to make any moves at all it will be through him. And if either of them gets out of wing, the closer one of us is the easier it will be to put the Blood King down.”

“There’s no faulting your reasoning,” because it was true: the only possible answer to the question of ‘why a San’layn?’ The Blood King was everything to the current Lich King that Frostmourne had been to the former-a companion, his greatest asset and his greatest weapon-and was likewise everything that Frostmourne had been to the living-dangerous. If a sudden play was made, the stop put to it would need to be immediate. In theory it was the closest thing to a perfect solution they’d ever reach. In practice, there was one problem. “He’ll suspect something. That we’re watching Wrynn at the very least.”

That sharp smile again. “Who’s watching whom anyway? Fordragon can suspect all he wants. It’ll give him something to do while he sits there and waits for that fire to go out. He still agreed. If anything, it’s reason for you to be careful: disregarding the likelihood the Lich King will be poised to have a hand in defending the Blood King if a true threat ever did arise, if he’s anything like Lana’thel I suspect that on his own Wrynn would still prove a handful. Even for a Horseman. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you: one bite and it’s over.” A threat. Yes. That much was undeniable. The Death Lord’s gaze shifted to something behind him. “Glad as I am to see you’ve found your sister, I hadn’t expected you to bring her back here with you. Though I suppose I should have. Wanting to remove your only family from the Horde’s line of fire is more than understandable.”

Darion turned. Thassarian had returned and he wasn’t alone; Koltira was expectedly hovering not far from the other Death Knight and a black haired woman whom he assumed was his sister was clinging to his arm, sending Thassarian a half-smug look which plainly said ‘I told you so.’

“I apologize, Death Lord.” He said with a sigh. “She threatened to chase after me if I didn’t take her along and I’ve come to know better than to put such things passed her.”

He vaguely remembered having heard rumors about the other Death Knight’s sister and goings on at Naxxanar during the Northrend Campaign.

The tint of Kiara’s grin became markedly more amused. “Somehow I get the feeling it runs in the family.” She said. “I’m assuming you don’t want her joining our Order or becoming a Necromancer?”

“I’d rather she didn’t.” He grumbled.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bigglesworth recently had a litter of kittens. I’m sure Kel’thuzad could make use of a cat keeper.” She said. “Have you ever had a pet or taken care of an animal before?”

“We grew up on a farm.” Leryssa chirped, entirely unruffled by the fact that she was surrounded by Death Knights. Even if one of them was her brother it was an unusual sight to see: being in the presence of their kind tended to make the living understandably nervous. “The cats that lived there tended to take care of themselves but we had livestock and chickens and a couple of dogs that we looked after.”

“How tolerant are you of eccentricity and people who possess an obsessive adoration of the sound of their own voice?” Koltira asked.

“Tolerant enough.”

Thassarian looked the other Death Knight dead in the eye. “That runs in the family too.”

“I am nowhere near as bad as Kel’thuzad! That is entirely unfair!”

Leryssa snickered. Kiara covered her own laughter with a stiff cough. Protected from view by his helm Darion smirked openly. Koltira treated them all to a heatless glare.

“Fine, then, I’ll take the ‘sound of my own voice’ and go.” He made a show of flouncing off the platform but everyone present knew he hadn’t gone far.

All remaining seriousness dissolved when  Leryssa looked up and informed her brother in no uncertain terms “you should really be nicer to your boyfriend, Thass.”

If the man hadn’t already been dead he’d have dropped then and there. Kiara burst into a fit of giggling which sounded like a bell falling down a flight of stairs. Even Darion was taken enough off guard that he failed to bite back a bark of laughter in time. In the wake of having home and family and even the peace of death ripped away from them and being thrust back into a world which was content to look down on them as nothing more than monsters they’d turned inwards towards each other and had created a new family of their own. Maybe there was something to that. Some small comfort.  Something they could truly lay claim to and which, in the end, was truly worth protecting.

He could only hope that their choice to stand behind the Scourge in a march which was sure to put the work of Arthas to shame wouldn’t be the thing which brought it all crashing down around them.


	5. The Blood King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my frequent commenters, ausmac, sent me a little sketch they did of Blood King Anduin and as such is something I like to do as a little thank you in return whenever I get fan art I've put it up at the end of this chapter so take the time to check it out please.

Anduin couldn’t remember ever having been this cold. It felt as if he’d been buried in the snow in the very heart of winter; dropped into below freezing water; caught up in a Mage’s stray Ice Block. ‘Chilled to the bone’ was a phrase that he’d always thought was an exaggeration, yet he felt it now. Frozen clear through to the very marrow of his bones; so thoroughly that short of leaping into an active volcano he had no hope of ever being warm again.

And it was quiet. Unnaturally so. Lacking the sounds he’d never noticed before their sudden absence: his own breathing, the rush of blood through his veins, the beating of his heart.

A heart that wasn’t beating anymore.

At once it all came rushing back to him in a terrible blur: the appearance of the Horde fleet and Zeppelins off the coast of Stormwind; Shaw dragging him through the streets towards the tram; his escape from the Spymaster and the desperate prayers in the cathedral; the explosion throwing him clear across the room; the roof tumbling down on top of him; the pain; Thassarian and Icecrown and-.

**It’s alright, Anduin. From this point forwards everything will be ok.**

He hadn’t heard that voice in so long, yet even after years of time and buried underneath layers of metallic tones Anduin still recognized it as readily as he’d been able to recognize his own father’s. How could he not when it was the one he’d most often heard while growing up? The voice of the man who had helped to raise him; his ever patient instructor in the arts of the blade; of the teller of the hushed stories of heroes and battles at bed time in the semi-darkness of his room. Slowly, the panic and confusion began to ebb away and his body relaxed against the soft cushions he’d been laid on.

Clumsily, yet unwilling to open his eyes and face what had become of him, Anduin fumbled in the darkness of his mind for the other end of the link. Finding it and taking hold with shaking fingers. Feeling small. Tentative. A child all over again. **Bolvar?**

**I’d have rather we had never met again than have you back like this.**

The offer. The agreement. The pain. His throat burned and his insides felt as if they’d been hollowed out with a rusted spoon. **I made my choice.**

**You should have lived. You should have grown old; you deserved to.** Grief. Resentment at Sylvanas. They were the Lich King’s, not his: at the moment Anduin was about as emotionally capable as Wrathion’s favorite noodle stand back on the Timeless Isles. How long ago had that been? Days? Years? **Let Atherann and his Dark Fallen tend to you. See me at the Froze Throne when you’re ready.**

The presence withdrew from his mind, taking all the comfort and familiarity with it and leaving the once Human alone in the darkness. Unable to stand just floating there in uncertainty any longer and having successfully regained a small margin of control over his body he opened his eyes.

The first things that registered on his slowly loading mental process were the colors: gold black and red. The sheets and cushions of the elven bed-couch he lay limp and languid atop were the vibrant crimson of mortal wounds, the draperies hung against the saronite walls a slightly less saturated scarlet. A hand, his hand, lay only a few inches from his face; its thin taloned fingers adorned with rings which matched the golden armlets and bands on his arms, linked together by delicate chains which slithered and slipped against his skin as he moved. His back felt heavier than it had before. Something made of metal worn around his neck clinked as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

The weight against his shoulder blades turned out to be a pair of massive wings: skeletal and leathery like a bats they ended in spines which appeared capable of considerable damage. And someone had decorated them as well; saronite plates glazed with gold and cobalt had been bolted to the arms as far up as the delicate limbs could support. From the waist down he’d been clad in pants richly dyed in Stormwind colors which were perhaps a bit too fitting in certain places, the finery of them somewhat reduced by the fact they’d been torn to the point that they ended in tattered threads just above his knees. Whoever had been responsible for dressing him proved themselves not much of one to miss an opportunity for jewelry as another pair of golden bands had been placed around his ankles. His skin had become the color of slate, smooth and cold, and the gashes left by the stained glass, bits of wood and metal which had pierced him had been stitched shut with black thread.

His teeth felt too big in his mouth. He grasped at his burning throat with one hand, a low groan making its way passed his swollen tongue.

A green-tinged hand brought a heavy goblet to his lips, another grasping his hair and tilting his head back far enough to ease the process of drinking. The taste and smell of iron was overwhelming, the liquid thick against his tongue and throat, and some part of him snapped enough into place to realize that what he was being fed was blood. That didn’t stop him from swallowing. Relief flooded through his body, the discomfort easing and taking some of the weakness with it, and the fog over his mind thinned.

He pawed at the goblet, claws rattling against the carved metal as he tried and failed to operate his fingers in the necessary manner to grab and hold it himself. Whoever was feeding him didn’t seem too terribly bothered, making no comment as they refilled the goblet twice more before Anduin came to the realization that he could drink forever and never fully slake his thirst. He slumped forward when he was released, gasping for breath he didn’t need, but before he could speak a mirror was slid into his line of sight.

Little more than a polished pane of ice, it did its job and reflected back at him an image which was only slightly distorted. His hair had been pulled back with a black tie, the color-slightly lightened by death-joining his sanguine eyes as a shock against his new ashen skin tone. With the size of his wings having made any true top dress impossible the only things worn on his upper body were a scaled collar of gold and admiral blue and a single pauldron in the shape of the horned skull of the Scourge. Not exactly the sort of thing Anduin would have thought he’d be comfortable being caught dead in, but now that he was he found that he couldn’t really bring himself to care. A bit revealing, sure, but he was covered where it mattered so there was no real point in making a fuss.

“Where am I?” Icecrown, he knew that much, but what wing? Anduin had heard of the Dark Fallen before-after much effort and days of digging through old adventurer’s journals years after the Northrend campaign had come to an end-and knew what they were. Vampiric Blood Elves-or at least they had all been Blood Elves prior to him-raised from the dead bodies of the survivors of Kaelthas and Illidan’s failed march on Icecrown.

The Dark Fallen still holding the emptied goblet was the one who answered, releasing his grip on Anduin’s hair. “The Crimson Hall, my liege.”

Crimson Hall? The name was accurate, if rather uninspired. Then again, creativity probably wasn’t something placed in much of a high regard by the Scourge.

“How long have I been…” catching ‘unconscious’ on the tip of his tongue Anduin instead said “dead?”

“Some hours. It’s early morning on the day after your city’s destruction.”

Had any more of his people escaped, on other trams or through some other means? Had the tram that Shaw had tried to drag him onto even made it to Ironforge? Had they attacked other cities at the same time? Was anything of the Alliance left?

“We are at your hand, Blood King. If there’s anything that you require?”

Answers. Information. Revenge. Nothing which could be given to him at a moment’s notice. “No.” He swung his legs off of the round bed-couch, setting his feet against the frozen floor. Had he still been living the temperature would have burned him but now the sensation didn’t even register. To him the ground was solid. Nothing more. “I’ll speak with the Lich King now. Excuse me.”

None of the close to twenty elves in the chamber where he’d woken up attempted to follow him but they all watched him go with glowing eyes. He kept his wings tucked in close against his body, locking the thumb talons together at his neck like the clasp of a cloak, but nothing he did would stop the boney points from dragging against the ground. The only sounds aside from their gentle rattle were the padding of his footsteps and the occasional crackle of ice as the glacier settled. The San’layn banners and red draperies on the walls fluttered as he passed, leaving the Crimson Halls behind for the Spire.

Everything here was steeped in tones of pallid blue. A core of glacial ice cut its way up the center of the hollow space, vaguely white in tone and so cold it created a fine sheen of fog in the air. Anduin made his way along the circular platform and across the grated bridge and stepped onto the teleportation pad which waited at the center.

The sensation of traveling in that method was not as jarring as he’d expected it to be, though his perception of such things was perhaps not as accurate as it once would have been.

The massive spines which crowned the citadel supported the platform of creviced ice between them like the claws of a great beast. The ground before him was a patchwork of whites and darkened blues. The wind blew cold and fierce here and he was filled with the sudden desire to open his wings and let it take him skyward despite having no idea how he was meant to go about flying by his own power.

**Anduin.** The Lich King’s voice once more sounded in his mind, present but not invasive, stirring broken memories to the surface. A training session where he’d corrected his posture for what had to be the millionth time and yet despite that his hands remained gentle and his patience steady. A dinner where he’d slipped him extra desert, all behind Katrana’s back of course, and acted for all the world as if it was a shared secret between them of grave importance. A snowy Winter’s Veil where they’d pelted each other with snow balls until the disguised Dragon had stormed out of the Keep and scolded them both. **Come to me. Let me see you.**

A great staircase led to the foot of the frozen throne, it and the figure seated on it contained within a massive block of ice which looked to have recently suffered several powerful blows from a hammer. Even as he came to stand before it he couldn’t see inside but thought there might have been the faintest glimmer of Dragon fire from within the ice.

His father dead. Jaina clearly done with him. His people massacred and his city destroyed. The last member of his family, the man who’d raised him and he’d mourned for years, was now before him and yet even still remained out of reach. Hands shaking, the jewelry he’d been festooned with while unconscious clicking together, he splayed his fingers against the ice and bowed his forehead to the frigid surface.

**I’m here, Anduin.** Yes, ‘here’ as in buried under seven feet of unmelting ice. Beyond him, forever, when he desperately needed the physical comfort of someone he’d known since his earliest childhood. As if in response to that thought the presence in his mind intensified to a degree which would have been painful enough to the living to bring them to their knees; it brought to him a strange comfort which he could neither describe nor comprehend. **I am with you, more so than any of the others. I’ve always been with you somehow, haven’t I?**

**Yes.** It was odd how quickly communicating without words had become natural to him. More natural, now, than speaking normally; that method of communication required air but he no longer needed to breathe, physically had to force his lungs to go through the required motions, so what was the point? **In spirit.**

In many ways, though in large part because back then he’d still been a Prince and had had the time and freedom to truly engage in mourning, he’d grieved Bolvar’s loss more strongly than that of his own father. There’d certainly been less left unresolved between them, to say the least. Anduin had known him more than he had Varian, though in his final years his father had tried.

**The actions of the Banshee Queen cannot be abided. Through Stormwind’s fall she has made this personal. When the Legion came I gifted the Ebon Blade’s Death Lord with a portion of my power and have likewise done the same with you and there is none before you within the Scourge, now, but me: as I cannot leave this throne it will but up to you to show the Horde the true wrath of the Lich King.**

**The Scourge will march?** Once that would have horrified him-he’d have protested vehemently against such an action; insisted that the renewed spread of the Scourge was the last thing Azeroth needed-but now all it brought about was anticipation. He began to salivate. His fangs aching as the taste of blood returned to his mouth. Soon, there would be retribution.

**First, you will study; learn what you must under Kel’thuzad to raise your people.** The heavy weight of sorrow tugged on those words, but none the less they held a conviction against which one couldn’t argue. **Stormwind will live again and drink deep of the blood of its enemies.**

He’d failed his people, his own inability to put his foot down dooming them all to a terrible fate, but now he was being handed a second chance. This time, Anduin was determined not to make the same mistakes. **I won’t fail you. _We_ won’t fail you.**

**I have every confidence in that, Blood King.**  The Lich King said. **The Arch Lich awaits you on Naxxramas.**


	6. Lesson Number One: Rank and File

Kel’thuzad: once powerful mage of the Kirin Tor prior to being turned out for practicing the Black Arts; founder of the Cult of the Damned; the Lich King’s most loyal; Arch Lich of the Scourge; master of the dread necropolis Naxxramas. Anduin had only ever heard his name spoken in hissed whispers, usually accompanied by darting eyes and locks of terror. He expected something eldritch, something nightmarish, something…well…

“Ah, Blood King, I’ve been expecting you!” The Lich chirped, covered head to toe in cats. Anduin looked on, struck dumb by the utter ridiculousness of the sight in front of him, as the leader of the Cult of the Damned carefully extracted himself from underneath the mewing hoard. “It’s good to see you made it through your reanimation with your sanity intact. Some, sadly, aren’t so lucky. What are you staring at?”

“Um…cats?” Anduin didn’t know what else to say.

“Yes, cats. My dearest babies. My pride and joy. Surely you understand! A young lion such as yourself must have had a cat at some point in your life.”

“I never had a pet, actually.” Though that had never been for lack of wanting one.

Most people would simply nod and move on, maybe make a comment like “oh,” “that’s unfortunate,” or something else innocuous. Kel’thuzad let out a piercing screech, his horned skull contorting into as much of an expression of horror as it could manage. “Travesty! You poor thing: you were _abused_! Quickly, this must be fixed!” Seizing a lilac Birman kitten from out of the pile with incredible delicacy despite his urgency he dropped it into Anduin’s hands and proceeded to pat him on the head like a child. “There, _now_ you have a cat. I’ll be very displeased if you eat her.”

Anduin looked down at the kitten in his arms. Blue eyes which looked remarkably similar to his own when he’d been alive blinked back at him. She purred. “Why would I eat a cat?”

“You’re a San’layn; your kind eats _everything_.” The Lich cleared his throat and then, in a calmer voice, informed him “her name is Googles.”

Googles? That wasn’t exactly an intimidating name. Not that a ball of fluff could really ever be intimidating. “Thanks?”

“Consider it a late rebirthday gift from me, your Uncle. And that is what you should consider me, Blood King; _Uncle_ Kel’thuzad.”

It was probably better not to ask. Googles pawed at one of the thin chains which bound his left armlet and bracer. “I was told that you were going to teach me what I need to know to lead the Scourge against the Horde…Uncle?”

“You were told correctly. By the Lich King’s command, I am to teach you advanced Shadow Magics and Necromancy. Not to mention how to properly use your new body to its fullest ability.” Skeletal fingers picked at his wings. “These most specifically. You’ll also be spending time in Acherus learning to work with Runes, making your own weapon and correcting your…shall we call it a tendency towards artless flailing?”

“I wouldn’t be offended if you called my incompetence with a blade what it was.” Gently, mindful of his talons, Anduin scratched behind the kitten’s ears. “I’m from a family of Warriors. Blunt is what I’m used to.”

“I will take some adjustment, then.” The Arch Lich floated towards the doorway of his throne room, robes and chains billowing around him. “Please leave Googles here while I give you a tour and then push you off Naxxramas so you’ll learn to fly.”

“Your idea of ‘teaching me how to fly’ is pushing me off the necropolis?” Googles leapt from his arms and trotted over to her siblings as Anduin hurried after the Lich.

“Well, had I wings of my own I’d teach you by example. But I don’t, so I have to take a different approach to those lessons than to the ones in which I’ll be teaching you magic.” The Lich said it like defenestrating your ‘nephew’ was a normal every day action. “I’ll warn you first.”

Charitable.

Anduin hadn’t looked around the entry chamber when he’d taken the portal up to Sapphiron’s empty lair and Kel’thuzad’s chamber behind it; a pair of slanted walkways led down into gloom, one leading to the Rampart of Skulls where the necropolis had docked and the other presumably emptying out into Icecrown’s gelid wind. Four more slanted walkways led upwards into the separate wings of the necropolis.

Spidery fingers curled around his bare shoulder. “Naxxramas is the greatest necropolis in the Scourge’s armada, a true master piece of Darkness and a sign of the Lich King’s power. The fact that I am its Lord is indisputable proof that I am the very pinnacle of Lich hierarchy.” He said. “Hierarchy: that, above all, is the most important factor for us in undeath. The very backbone of the Scourge. And I will teach you all you need to know of it while I show you around. Ensure you pay attention, Blood King.”

“I was a Priest.” Was a Priest, but not anymore. The Light wouldn’t so much as look at him now and the Shadow…he’d soon be delving into darker Magics than even that. “We tend to make an art of listening.”

“A skill that’s rare here to the point of endless frustration.” With his other hand Kel’thuzad indicated the first doorway. “Naxxramas’ main body is divided into four quarters. That one is the Arachnid Quarter; following clockwise around we have the Plague, Military and Construct Quarters. We shall proceed, first, into the Arachnid Quarter.”

What Anduin found himself confronted with was another example of the Scourge’s apparent tendency towards apt but uninspired naming. The Arachnid Quarter was draped in thick ropes of sticky webbing and squirming egg sacks populated the corners of doorways. The floor heaved with thousands of tiny spiders which parted around and crawled over his feet as they walked into a practiced manner which made him think they were well versed in avoiding being squashed.

“The difference between Naxxramas and Ice Crown Citadel is that, where in the Lich King’s own house the ‘Ashen Verdict’ was able to not only slay but destroy our fellows, rendering reanimation impossible, they did not have the time here. The only one unsalvageable, unfortunately, was Sapphiron due to his pieces being taken away.” Kel’thuzad said. “When the Legion came a partial lift of the ban on resurrecting the dead was instituted: where the Cult of the Damned remained forbidden from raising new mortals, those who had fallen among our ranks and could be salvaged were within our bounds. The Four Horsemen were replaced and Thaddius was decommissioned but all else is original. The mistress of this wing is Grand Widow Faerilina.”

Anduin stepped carefully over a stretch of webbing, mindful not to get his wings stuck.

“This was the first Quarter to fall to Azeroth’s ‘heroes’ owing largely to it being a comparatively soft target. Here we bred spiders and engineered potent, brutal toxins. It housed a contingent of Nerubians, some of my Cult under the Grand Widow, and Maexxna, the Brood Mother.”

Pointed legs scrabbled along the base of his neck. Anduin found himself having to resist the urge to swat at the spider that had landed on him. Even if it ended up biting him, even if it ended up being venomous, it wouldn’t matter. Still, it was incredibly discomforting to have something skittering around on his back.

“Spiders. Insects of many kinds. They, along with beasts like Gluth, serve as the lowest of the Scourge’s hierarchy. Though they have a certain animal intelligence, which is more than can be said of some stations of undead above them, their uses are minimal and largely relegated either to a source of reagents or a method of disposal for defective creations.” A flick of a spindly wrist froze the spider on him solid; it dropped to the stone and shattered apart. “I don’t want them in other parts of the necropolis. Step this way, please; we’ll continue to the Construct Quarter.”

The floor of the Construct Quarter was largely made up of grates which connected stone walk ways that formed serpentine islands amidst a sea of plague sludge. To the living the stench would have doubtlessly been foul but Anduin was more concerned with looking over one of the hulking abominations which stood astride the doorway they’d passed through to really notice it.

“Do mind your step, Blood King, the grate openings are large enough to fall through in places.” The Arch Lich floated across the grate without impediment. Spreading his as of yet useless wings to either side to act as a counter balance he began to delicate process of negotiating the grate’s saronite cross bars. Kel’thuzad had waited patiently for him at the end of the first stone walk way and resumed talking once he was back in easy ear shot. “Behold, the last of the Quarters to fall before their invasion of my sanctum. Here is where what are referred to as ‘monstrous Scourge’ are built: flesh giants, plague walkers and abominations. Minorly intelligent but fanatically devoted, we piece them together from stray parts and make use of them as shock troops and siege breakers. Commonly, they’re fielded alongside such standard fare as geists and ghouls-the foot soldiers of our ranks.”

“Cannon fodder?”

The Arch Lich nodded. “In a word. Skeletons and geists and ghouls are all flimsy and simply made. They come in a near endless supply and are easily controlled. It only makes sense they’d be expendable.” He said. “Does that offend your sensibilities?”

“My sensibilities don’t seem to have felt like coming back to life with the rest of me.”

“Once you have your people back you may find that isn’t fully true.” Kel’thuzad swept him towards another teleporter. “The Plague Quarter next.”

The stone floors here were hot and cracked, a suspicious green haze seeping upwards from somewhere below. The doorways were hung with flesh curtains styled into the same screaming skulls which had been used to decorate the walls.

“It was a technicality which allowed me to salvage two of my students who fell in this wing, as by the time of their death they were already stuck somewhere between ‘living’ and ‘undead’. I froze Noth’s heart myself when he started having doubts and as for Heigan I’m not certain but I think he may have fallen into one of his Plague cauldrons while he was inventing the Safety Dance.”

Safety dance? “Does he do that often?”

“Fall into his Plague cauldrons or do ballet in his slime encrusted chambers?” The man’s surly voice reverberated off the sides of the cauldron he was bent over, fishing out fanged skulls and dropping them into a basket another Necromancer was holding.

“Anduin, this is Noth. The man responsible for perfecting the reanimation process. Noth, this is the Blood King.”

“Charmed.” Another skull clacked into the basket.

Kel’thuzad shook his head and looked down at him. “He and Heigan have hated each other since the formation of the Cult of the Damned. Their rivalry does their projects nothing but good but I’m afraid that mentioning one in the other’s presence never fails to put them into an uncharitable mood.” He said. “Let’s move on.”

They continued down the passageway, leaving the pair to their work with the cauldron of bones.

“Necromancers of any stripe, but most especially those who rise to be Liches, hold a position near the pinnacle of the Scourge’s ranks. Without us, no new Scourge could be raised. Without us, no abominations could be built. Without us, the wounds of the damned could not be repaired. With our advisory and our magical prowess, the Cult of the Damned is in many ways the glue which holds the rest of the hierarchy together.” Kel’thuzad pushed aside a curtain of flesh, clearing a path into a room filled with tentacles and eye stalks which appeared to be growing from pots. “Among the Liches I am at the top, answering directly to the Lich King: with you as his new Right Hand, I’ve been minorly demoted to his left.”

Anduin turned his head to observe the Lich with calculating eyes. “You don’t seem upset by that, which I find difficult to believe.” He said. “The first of the Cult of the Damned, the Lich King’s most loyal, replaced? By a new comer as well: someone unproven. Surely it’s at least something of an insult.”

“Were it anyone but you I might be disgruntled. But it’s only natural the Lich King would want the child he raised as if he were his own at an heir’s proper place: second to none but the King himself.”

“You don’t resent me?”

“Resent you? Anduin, I find you _fascinating_.” The Arch Lich said. “The first Human San’layn. The blood son of the Wolf and heart son of the Master. The only man I know of to truly choose undeath of his own accord without the lure of power. And you were close with Proudmoore as well, weren’t you? Though only vaguely, she was one of my contemporaries. This is the Military Quarter.”

“It wasn’t much of a choice.”

“Even so, it was a great sacrifice for a ‘Light type’ like you. To give up that ‘peace’ you supposedly find after you die. To never have the chance to ‘rest’.”

“How could I rest after what I’ve done?” the glow of his eyes dimmed, darkening from crimson to garnet. “After what I’ve failed to do?”

**This was _not_ your fault.**

“The Lich King is right, Anduin.” Kel’thuzad said. “You’re not the one who dropped bombs on Stormwind or marched through its streets. That credit belongs to the Banshee Queen and the Horde.”

No, he hadn’t done any of that but he may as well have. If he’d believed in his own ability instead of succumbing to doubt, if he hadn’t allowed Genn to take advantage of his emotional vulnerability and talk him into storming the ruins of Lordaeron, the Horde would never have been pushed to such brutality. The siege of the Exodar. The burning of Teldrassil. The destruction of Stormwind. None of it would have happened. Because of his failure to do the very basics of the job he’d been born and raised for everything his father had ever lived, suffered and died to protect had been destroyed.

His choice hadn’t been out of fear or want of power of even of revenge. It had been out of a want to hide because he couldn’t bear to ever face Varian Wrynn again.

The Military Quarter was dimly lit by a number of hanging lanterns attached to black chains which dangled from vaulted ceilings. Banners toned in nightshade were mounted on the stone walls in ruffled curtains. Loose weapons floated about in aimless patterns. Death Knights, both on foot and mounted, spared them little attention as they went about their business.

“From contact with the Ebon Blade, you know what a Death Knight is?”

Anduin nodded, instinctively ducking a weilderless axe as it whizzed by overhead. “Yes.” He said. “I only rarely got the chance to speak with the Order’s members but I know that those who joined the Alliance, at least, were honorable and a great asset. Have they rejoined the Scourge?”

“No. The Ebon Blade are a separate entity from the Scourge who see it as their duty to contain us. Repentance for their crimes during their time among our ranks, or some other such nonsense, I think.” The Lich said. “We forged a tenuous pact of sorts with them when the Legion came which yet remains intact, though how they will react to the Lich King’s plan to march in direct disregard of the agreement’s terms I can’t be sure.”

“The Death Lord is a Blood Elf, isn’t she? If they choose to take a side at all, wouldn’t the most likely bet be the Horde?”

“The Death Lord is a Blood Elf, yes, but that doesn’t mean she has to stay with the Horde in all that they do.” Kel’thuzad said. “In fact, had the news not come too late, her choice to warn Stormwind would have-at least in Sylvanas’ mind-placed the Ebon Blade as a clear friend of the Alliance. From your expression I would assume this news comes as a surprise.”

“I thought that Bolvar had demanded it, or that the Alliance faction within the Ebon Blade had made the choice, or that Thassarian had simply come on his own looking for his sister.” Anduin said. “I never considered that a member of the Horde might…I suppose this just goes to show how much I allowed my own beliefs to slip through my fingers in recent months. Once, such news wouldn’t have caught me so off balance.”

All this time he’d been mentally chastising Jaina for turning from her long held values in the face of adversity without realizing how much of a hypocrite such an action made him.

Rather than attempt to draw out the source of his mental anguish, the Arch Lich resumed his explanation. “Death Knights are the utility of the Scourge. The perfect soldiers. And the strongest among them are the Four Horsemen. The Horsemen of the past include such figures as Alexandros Mograine, Baron Rivendare and Sir Zeliek.” Kel’thuzad said. “The current members are Nazgrim, former General of the Horde; Thoras Trollbane, former King of Stromgarde; Sally Whitemane, once High Inquisitor of those Scarlet zealots; and none other than the Ebon Blade’s Darion Mograine.”

Anduin looked into the indicated chamber as they passed. There were only three Death Knights inside: an orc and two humans neither of whom looked familiar. The woman nodded when she caught his eye and he returned the gesture in kind. “I’m assuming he prefers staying in Acherus.”

“He is Ebon Blade, not Scourge.” From the way the line was said it sounded like it was an old point of argument though with whom Anduin could only guess. “The Lich King wants you to train in Runework, smithing and battle with their Order presumably as a means of keeping an eye on them. But I want it clear that if circumstances render them insufficient teachers Razuvius will take over at just a word.”

“Because I’m Scourge now?” perhaps a case of distrust and old anger? Or a correct assumption he was there as another set of eyes?

“I suspect your choice to remain in undeath instead of to die may have caused at least some offense.” The Lich said. “They never got that choice, and will all but certainly see your choice as wrong. Some may be more…vocal than others on the matter. Others may not stop at words.”

“Are you warning me to watch my back?” he asked.

“In so many words.” The Arch Lich replied. “We’ll return to the midpoint now. It’s time you started learning to use those wings.”


	7. Lesson Number Two: What Goes Up...

The howling arctic wind licked across his face and tugged wildly at the loose strands of hair which weren’t quite long enough to be held back by the black band. The ice just at the foot of the citadel was a frigid piercing blue which reflected what little light made it down through the clouds back against the mighty Saronite walls. Farther out the glacier darkened, suggesting a layer of rock buried somewhere far beneath the cracked surface. At intervals throughout the glacier ragged spines of stone and towering gates rose skyward: obstacles he’d have to avoid hitting once he actually managed to get into the air.

For the moment the most likely thing he’d hit would be the ground.

“How far up would you say this is?” he probably didn’t want to know the answer to that question, now that he thought about it.

“From here? That would be about five hundred feet down.” The Arch Lich said. “Nothing to worry about compared to the Frozen Throne: it’s only about half that height.”

Anduin had never been this high off the ground before. “What happens if I crash?” that would be a bit much for even an undead to survive.

“We put you back together, or reanimate you if it really goes that far, and try again as need be. Though, take it from someone who’s been reanimated a number of times, each successive time is more painful than the last: a bit of incentive to at least slow the fall enough that you don’t go ‘splat’.” A particularly powerful gust blew through the opening in front of them and Anduin had to steady himself against the wall to keep from falling out. “Ready?”

“No!”

“Good.” He’d barely had the chance to decipher the word over the gale when a forceful push sent him tipping over the edge and into free fall.

Dying and coming back to life didn’t do anything to make the sensation of falling any less horrific. Mind blank with fear Anduin scrabbled at thin air for nonexistent purchase and tried to scream but didn’t have the breath to make a sound. Wings. Wings! He had wings and he needed to use them!

The pressure of the wind made it difficult to do so but Anduin managed to force his wings open as the glacier’s surface rushed closer. His fall slowed incrementally but didn’t stop, the angle slightly changed by his glide, and Anduin flapped his wings desperately in an effort to climb higher. He slammed into the ice with a painful thump, slid a couple hundred feet, flipped end over end and landed on his front in a drift of snow with his wings crumpled around him like a fallen parachute.

“Ouch.” He huffed, blinking into the snow which pressed into his face. At least he hadn’t hit the ground hard enough that he’d need to be re-reanimated. It didn’t even feel like he’d broken anything.

Pushing himself back up onto his knees Anduin brushed the crystals of ice out of his face and looked up. Owing to the fact that the majority of his approximately eight second fall had been directed straight down he’d ended up only about twenty feet outside the shadow of Naxxramas. From this far away the necropolis looked almost like a toy.

How was he supposed to get back up there?

Over the hissing shriek of wind the sound of leathered wing beats could be heard. He turned around just in time to see a massive Dragon land on the ice a few yards away.

“A wingless flight instructor is a poor flight instructor, Blood King. You’ll never learn like this.” The orbs of ice set into its empty sockets glinted in the low light. “Even things born with the instinct to fly gain nothing from being thrown off high places. With the Master’s permission, I will teach that Lich a thing or two about his methods.”

**I’d rather not be pushed off Naxxramas again.** Anduin was quick to put in. **Not to mention that I’d need to learn to take off some time, won’t I?**

He felt the Lich King laugh. **Perhaps Chilblains has a point in saying a wingless flight trainer is insufficient. If you’d rather learn from a Dragon, Anduin, I don’t think Kel’thuzad would mind.**

The Master of the Cult of the Damned had seemed somewhat out of his depth. “I think you would be a better option.”

Regardless of their age and Flight of origin a Dragon’s pride was always the same; if there had been one lesson he’d learned from his ‘friend’ the Black Prince it was that. Chilblains’ tattered wings mantled, his stance stretching to the full height of his neck and tail. “Your Human origin shows, San’layn.” He growled. “Do you really think flight is achieved by flailing your wings up and down? Bah! Only something wingless would believe that. It’s clear I have to start from the ground up as you’ve no instincts to guide you.”

Wasn’t that what Griffins did? What birds did? Anduin had never really put much thought into the ‘how’ of flight, largely because he had no reason to expect he’d ever find himself possessed of the ability.

“You’re not getting off this ice until I’ve reason to believe you know how to use those wings, Blood King, lest you make of yourself another pathetic spectacle. I will teach you proper motion and you will mimic me.”

**He sounds remarkably like Katrana.** Anduin said. “I’ll pay close attention to what you have to teach me.”

“You didn’t suffer damage to your head in that fall, it seems, at the very least.” The Frost Wyrm sounded approving enough of his answer and spread his wings, aiming an expectant gaze at Anduin until he did the same. “First, we begin with the basics. You have the ability to rotate your wings because you’re supposed to make use of it: the secret to flight is a circular motion. Just so.” The Frost Wyrm’s demonstration swept a tide of rime across the ice. Largely on account of his wings being much smaller the result of his repetition was much less impressive.

“Good. Remember that while in the air: I don’t want to see anymore waving around.” The glacier crackled beneath a blow from his tail. “Next, to rise and descend while in the air one does not simply stop beating their wings or beat their wings harder. Direction in flight is a result of subtle motions. To go up, tilt your wings up. To go down, do the same in reverse. To go to the right or the left you lower the appropriate wing. More ambitious maneuvers such as dives and rolls are things you’re not even to think about today.”

Anduin dipped his head. “I understand.”

“It is also important that you remember that you don’t need to continue flapping your wings indefinitely. Gliding for a short period of time won’t steal your altitude. It is also integral, especially here, that you be mindful of the wind or you’ll quickly find yourself thrown against the Citadel.”

The wind. Yes, he’d noticed that earlier.

“Are you prepared to make an attempt to get off the ground, Blood King?”

Sitting around wasn’t going to make his prospects any better. “Yes.”

“Then join me.” With an effortless ease Chilblains dragged himself into the howling storm.

Coiling down into a crouch Anduin attempted to follow, bringing his wings down in a sweeping motion, but was unsuccessful in parting himself from the ground. The Dragon didn’t immediately comment and simply watched him make another handful of failed attempts.

“Try a running start.” He said. “Taking off from a static position may yet be too advanced.”

Well, to the credit of his surroundings, if there was one thing the flat expanse of snow and ice was good for it was a straight way. Carefully Anduin tested his footing. Scratching at the ice with the talons on his toes. Slick, but not unreasonably so. There was no reason for him to think that moving too quickly would lead him to biting snow again. Casting his gaze further ahead of him and scoping out the divots and stones which might give him trouble he selected the clearest path he could find and, after scratching at the ice once more, started running.

It had been a long time since he’d actually been able to run, hindered by the near-to-a-stagger limp he’d been left with in the wake of the Divine Bell as he’d been in the last few years of his life, and even before that he’d never been able to run like this. A full sprint without flagging or protest, the disappearance of his need to sleep taking with it the need of his muscles for rest. With the North Wind behind him Anduin spread his wings to their full span and brought them down. Leaping once, twice and then finally breaking free of the glacier’s surface.

He wobbled, unsteady, and fought against the wind to climb to where Chilblains circled. The Frost Wyrm made it seem simple, his massive frame unmoved by the tearing gales Anduin found himself left with no choice but to actively battle against.

“You’ll find ease with practice.” The Dragon watched him as he struggled to hover near his hip. “If you can fly here you can fly anywhere.”

With what he’d already been put through Anduin had little doubt of that.

“Young and inexperienced as you are, we’ll confine the day’s flight to the Court of Bones. We’ll make a circuit back to the Citadel around the Cathedral of Darkness, the Horror Gate and the Vile Hold.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Stay in the air and keep up.” The Dragon took off towards the bladed spires of the cathedral, almost sending him flying with the pendulum seep of its tail. Blown slightly off course by another gust, Anduin did his best to catch up.

As the foot of the giant staircase of the Cathedral of Darkness drew up below them he managed to pull himself level with Chilblain’s front flank. Corp’rethar the Horror Gate towered in their path, its ribbed face and spiked top at less than welcoming thing to crash into. The gate in the center gaped wide, its frame lined with smaller spines which curved like the teeth of a beast. Anduin glanced at Chilblains for any signs of the path they were to take-over the gate or through it-only to find the Frost Wyrm staring at him. The choice was his and his options were rapidly lessening. Going over would be simpler and as long as he gave the spines a wide berth they’d prove no trouble. If he attempted to go through the gate there was every possibility that he’d collide with the wall to unpleasant results.

Anduin dropped lower and brought his wings closer to his form, the gate looming ever closer until it was on him. The thorned sides whistling by with dangerous proximity on his left side. Out the other side just moments later he stretched his wings back to their full span and climbed higher into the blue-violet sky, following the Dragon back up and over the top of the gate and towards Malykriss.

**Interesting choice.**

Anduin grinned, was almost knocked off balance by another gust and quickly steadied himself. **You never learn by doing what is easy.**

The rasp of steel on ice had replaced the warm laugh of his mentor but he was pleased to hear it all the same. **It seems you took something from my drilling after all.**

Posture. Balance. Aim. **I may have been terrible with a blade, but I did learn a great deal of importance from you.** He said. **You taught me more than anyone else.**

**Even Velen?**

Patient words and ancient eyes. The weight of duty. Visions of broken worlds and a future that was no longer his, tethered to Icecrown as he’d become. **The Prophet’s teachings aren’t of any use to me now. I left the Light behind.**

Though his presence remained the Lich King had no comment on the matter. None, at least, he wished to voice.

Malykriss, it turned out, was not another building among the Citadel’s fortifications as Anduin had come to expect, but rather a half-completed necropolis which looked well on its way to being twice the size of Dalaran. Tethered to a Saronite quarry by thick chains it seemed as if construction efforts had just recently resumed.

**Built entirely of saronite and designed to be nearly indestructible, Arthas intended it as a replacement for Acherus: the jewel of his fleet.** And what a jewel it would have been. It could have housed Stormwind’s entire army, their ground and air mounts, all of their gear and canons and probably a couple of Kraken war ships and still had comfortable room to spare. **That’s a conservative estimate, Anduin, as you’ll see in time.**

**What do you mean?**

**When it’s complete, Malykriss will belong to the Blood of Stormwind. Its image will become the Horde’s nightmare.**

That giant necropolis would be his? Stormwind’s replacement: a floating city for the blood thirsty shades of the kingdom Sylvanas had so callously destroyed? Anduin’s head whipped around in an effort to keep the structure in sight for as long as possible but it was soon lost to the glacier’s gloom. Ahead, Icecrown Citadel crouched amidst the blowing snow.

“This is where I leave you, Blood King, until our lessons resume.” The Dragon said. “I hope the Lich’s ability to teach you magic isn’t as lack luster as his attempts at teaching flight.” Tilting his wings Chilblains soared away into the storm, vanishing with startling efficiency for something his size. Alone, Anduin made the rest of the wobbly journey back towards the doorway of the necropolis he’d originally been pushed from.

It was only after he’d folded his wings incorrectly, caught his ankle on the opening and landed on the floor in a heap that he realized no one had told him how to land.

“You’re in desperate need of polish but at least you made it back up here in one piece.” The Lich hadn’t moved from where Anduin had last seen him and seemed unbothered by the red eyed glare he was currently fixed in. “Prince Theraldris will see to training you in San’layn Magics but as we discussed before Necromancy falls to me. As I understand that you were a gifted wielder of arts both Holy and not this should be more within your sphere of comfort. I hope, Blood King, that you don’t mind reading.”


	8. Lion to Wolf

It had been a long night.

Violence, terror and being forced to flee from everything they’d ever known, potentially leaving behind friends and family, had not made the handful of refugees from the tram in anyway pleased or overly willing to move again so soon. They were distraught. Scared. Understandably so. All they wanted was a safe place where they could huddle together, shut down and recover from the shock of everything enough to come to terms with the reality of what had happened. Ironforge, even with the city sure to be in the Horde’s crosshairs in due time if it hadn’t already been, was just such a place.

Emberstone Village was not.

The little mining town might once have been cozy and warm but that had been years ago. Now it was decrepit and falling to ruin, left in a state of advanced disrepair by years of inhabitation by the Forsaken and simply being left exposed to the rain which was a common occurrence in what had formerly been widely regarded as the Hermit Kingdom. More than a handful of them had either had their roofs collapsed inwards or had fallen to the ground all together. The rest were all in states of structural secureness which were questionable at best.

No time was going to be had here for processing or mourning or coming to terms. Too much work was needed to make the village something close to livable and finding some way to produce food for themselves. It was nothing compared to the city that they’d been forced from by the Horde’s sudden attack, nothing compared to Ironforge, nothing compared to the by now mostly restored Gilneas City where they’d been allowed to spend maybe an hour while bringing through the supplies before being shipped off to the ruined village they’d currently found themselves in, the Dwarves and Gnomes respectively being spread across Tempest Reach, Keel Harbor and Duskhaven.

These were the Gilnean’s cities. There were more of them than of the Gnomes or the Dwarves, certainly more than there were of the refugees from Stormwind. They’d been there since the Siege of Lordaeron, had made themselves comfortable and had put in work to repair many of the buildings. Displacing them would rock the boat and there were more important things which they currently needed to be worrying about.

Objectively, at least to some degree, and looking in on the matter from outside of it the Spymaster could understand some of the reasoning behind the decision to simply stick them in Emberstone Village rather than attempting to move the entrenched Worgen forces. But whenever he looked at the frightened, hollow faces of the men women and children who’d spent the past night huddled across from him in the one house in the village which was still sound enough to be trustworthy Shaw couldn’t help but feel anger and disgust. It had been Stormwind and Darnassus which had taken in Genn and his people after Gilneas had been leveled by the Horde; his fanatical obsession with revenge for what the Forsaken had done had destroyed them both, now, and rather than extend hospitality in a measure which could be considered equal given their circumstances and the resources at hand they’d been shoved into a proverbial drawer and all but forgotten in favor of other concerns.

Would things have been in any way different if Anduin hadn’t slipped his grip and died in the attack? With the typical Wrynn stubborn streak he’d inherited from his father and the ferocity with which he’d loved his subjects the Head of SI: 7 liked to think that the King would have put his foot down and demanded better treatment for the refugees-civilians ripped from their homes by the fall out of the push northward which Genn had snapped and howled for-but with the way Anduin’s confidence had withered in the face of the other King time and again he wasn’t certain that that would have been true.

Glad he’s dead. Glad that his gentle nature and bend towards peace could no longer stand in the way. Mathias wouldn’t quite go that far, wouldn’t join Moira across the line of ‘Gilneas was always plotting to take over from Stormwind’, but it couldn’t be denied that from almost the beginning Genn had been using Anduin. First as a surrogate, a replacement for the son that he’d lost to Sylvanas and, because of his exile, couldn’t even had the chance to properly mourn. That had been innocuous enough, though even then Shaw had had his concerns for what it might mean when Anduin one day became King. Varian had praised his caution but dismissed such ideas.

All the older Wrynn had seen from the matter was another pair of eyes to keep his son safe. And look how that had turned out. Varian had been a great King and, truly, his footsteps had been Dragon-sized. A daunting prospect for anyone to have to attempt to fill. But Anduin could have done it. With the boundless kindness, obstinate love for his people and often times recalcitrant-especially during his early teenage years-behavior towards authority which he believed to be advocating for something which wasn’t in the best interest of himself, Stormwind or the Alliance as a whole he could have matched his father if not surpassed him. Provided he’d been left to stumble for long enough to find his footing.

Genn, wrathful vengeful controlling Genn, hadn’t stood for that. Instead of allowing Anduin to fall, get up, look around and keep walking as his father and grandfather and Kings before him down the blood line had done Greymane had caught him, propped him up and pointed him at the Horde like a cannon. Leveraging his lack of confidence and claims of what Varian would have wanted like weapons to pry the young King’s grip free of his bull-headed pursuit of peace with the other Faction which might have ended the constant fighting and death but robbed Genn of his chance at revenge against Sylvanas. Had armed him with Shalamayne and clad him in the Wrynn’s heirloom plate and used Shaw’s own intelligence on the goings on in Silithus to march Anduin-a Priest, not a Paladin, who had little business on a battle field at all and absolutely none on the front lines-into war. Throwing him at the Ruins of Lordaeron, Silverpine and Gilneas. Retrieving his own lands, reduced to a crumbling husk, and paying Stormwind as the cost.

Maybe he’d meant well, maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he truly had felt the way about Anduin that he claimed. But whatever the truth had been the High King had known in the last hour of his life that his choice to heel step to Genn’s word had been the wrong one.

Mathias had never been terribly devout-it was hard to be when you were a down in the gutters assassin who lived by the turn of the blade and was raised on steel and poison-but, baring perhaps the coven of Warlocks who’d lurked beneath the Slaughtered Lamb, there hadn’t been a soul in Stormwind who hadn’t believed in the Light. Anduin, perhaps, had been the strongest in faith of them all-capable of true resurrection at only fourteen, in spite of his modest but false insistences that Varian had merely been unconscious at the time-and yet even with him present in the cathedral Stormwind hadn’t been spared. No matter what the Horde’s new weaponry was capable of, the Light should have been stronger. Should have, at least, protected the cathedral and surrounding square from total ruin. And yet if Thassarian was to be believed-and, fair enough, that was a pretty big if-the entire city had been leveled flat.

Something didn’t add up. If the Light had answered the destruction shouldn’t have been absolute. _If_ the Light had answered.

If. That was a truly terrifying thought.

“Spymaster?”

Shaw pulled himself from his thoughts, arranged his features into less of a scowl and turned his head. A sandy haired man who couldn’t have been more than four years the fallen King’s senior stood a few paces away, the glassy eyed shock from the night prior replaced with a set, half-empty stubbornness. A shadow of the same stubbornness which had allowed Stormwind to survive this long and rebuild in the past. Rebuilding now would be different, more difficult, than ever before. They were more liable, now, to be absorbed into Gilneas than continue to be their own people, set apart by their traditions and beliefs.

In another few generations, provided they survived the Horde’s crawl up the Eastern Kingdoms, a possibility which was still up in the air at this point in time, would there be anything left of difference? It was unlikely. There weren’t enough of them to keep the festivals and holidays unique to Stormwind and even if there had been it likely wouldn’t have been long before the Gilneans put their foot down on the matter.

To Genn’s credit, while he’d stayed in Stormwind he’d held his tongue for the most part. But a Rogue’s specialty was lurking in the shadows and listening in on private conversations and he hadn’t gotten to his rank by not being constantly underfoot amid both enemies and friends. Had heard him discuss with Crowley his alarm of how true the tails of the Southern Kingdom’s ‘Dionysian nature’ had been. The prudish traditionalism rampant in the North had been such a small concern that it was all but negligible then, its impact stretching no further than the Worgen leader’s polite refusal to participate in their more ‘open’ holidays, a comment on Anduin being a ‘bit young’ and a friendly jab at him by Varian, but now, uprooted and on the knife’s edge, even the smallest of problems loomed large.

But now wasn’t the time to concern himself with those less immediate and more external concerns. The man in front of him, at least so far as he remembered, was named “Ronan.” Yes, that was what it was. Ronan Marlowe. His mother had been a Priestess at Northshire Abbey and his father a farmer in Elwynn Forest. He’d been training as a Jewel Crafter, or had it been a Leather Worker, in Stormwind City. Anduin had all but bodily dragged him from underneath a heavy table on their way to the tram. “Is something the matter?”

“No, Sir.” Sir. Even with societal destruction and military melt down there was still enough comfort found in the illusion of a structure of authority to cling to now pointless titles denoting rank and file despite repeated permission to simply use his name. “It’s just that…I don’t mean to disturb you but this village isn’t livable and the building we spent the night in doesn’t look like it’s going to make it long. Rain is coming soon, we need to find a way to supplement the supplies and…there’s an overgrown field a couple hundred yards to the east of here and the mine and trees nearby should be adequate so…we’d like to start repairs.”

Repairs. Something Emberstone was desperately in need of and that they’d have had to get around to eventually. He’d wanted to give them what little time he could to terms before forcing the issue but really ought to have known better. Their people would always bounce back. And it would give them all something to do to keep their minds from straying into despair. Something for him to do to pass the few remaining hours before he took one of the rams the Dwarves had sent with them-not ideal but better than walking-to Gilneas City for the formal decision on who was to take Anduin’s place as High King.

“Let’s start, then.” He said. “Please get everyone together. We’ll start by determining who here has what strengths and can best aid with which part of getting this village up and running again.”

Having a definable project at hand worked wonders; the previously skittishly milling group of refugees calmed somewhat now that they had a job to lose themselves in. There wasn’t terribly much that could be done in a handful of hours even by a well-trained team of architects and farmers so it didn’t come as a terrible surprise when all they really managed to come up with was a couple boxes of tools which would themselves require repairs and about half an acre of weeding done on the field which would supplement the coming efforts to produce enough food to survive when the rations and other supplies quickly scrounged together in Ironforge inevitably ran out. It wasn’t much but it was something. And something, at least, was a start.

The distance between the Hermit Kingdom’s capital and Emberstone Village was just about fifteen miles-the distance being about the same from Keel Harbor and Duskhaven-and took just over two hours to reach on the back of the ram, entering the mostly repaired city through what had once been its bustling Market District and clattering down the narrow, cobblestone streets to Greymane Court where the gathering was to be held.

Mekkatorque looked strangely small, even for a Gnome, out of his mechanized suit. The Council of Three Hammers appeared to have arrived not that long before he had. Genn was, of course, already there; again with Bloodfang and Crowley at his flanks alongside a handful of City Guards.

Everyone there knew, at this point, that all this was was show. Political theater, nothing more. Agreement. Dissent. A rock and a hard place with no way out and no other choice. And they, like puppets, went through the motions. Objections. Affirmations. A debate which had already swallowed its own tail. Genn, as expected, as dreaded, was granted the title High King. Named the highest power of their Faction; the voice with the final word. And the Alliance sold itself to the abyss.

It was a long way down. Who would still be there when they finally hit the ground? Mathias had no way of knowing for certain.

“By the end of the week,” Darius was saying, “the last of our forces and civilian populations should have been successfully pulled from the Horde’s path. The repairs to the Greymane Wall should also have been finished: it stood against the Scourge, was only brought down by Deathwing’s Cataclysm, and even against Sylvanas’ new weapons it should hold for long enough that we’ll be well in place to rebuff them once they do make it through.”

They had time before the Horde reached the wall. They had time to prepare before they got through the wall. Time that mattered very little when they had no plan and no help.

“And what are we going to do with the time that our move here from Ironforge has bought us?” he asked, voice cold and words pointed. “When are we going to make good on your proposed ambassadors to other Factions?”

“One thing at a time, Shaw.” The Worgen leader growled. “We worry about securing Gilneas first. Everything else can come once the Wall is back in place.”


	9. Advancing Your Placement

 

The week which had passed since his rebirth as the Blood Monarch of the Crimson Hall had been the longest week of his life, owing largely to the fact that he’d never realized how much time sleeping wasted until he wasn’t doing it anymore. Twelve hours a night. Eight hours a night. Three hours a night followed by a few days of lowered performance because his body had been robbed of the rest that it needed. And, Frozen Throne, wasn’t it a wonder the amount that could be learned once exhaustion could no longer dull his mind.

He’d been relegated to the basics, which at first Anduin had been grateful for, but it quickly grew to grate on his patience as his abilities advanced by leaps and bounds. Blood Prince Theraldris’ explanations of the theory behind San’layn Magics-the amount that they were capable of by use of Death Runes alone was astonishing; equal parts daunting and reassuring in that, even at the current speed he was absorbing things, he’d still be busy learning for the better part of eternity if he wanted to know all of it-and the flesh bound books on Death Magic Kel’thuzad kept in his chambers on Naxxramas had been interesting enough to keep his patience from crumbling entirely but as the week had gone on their focus had moved more and more towards powders and herbs; where to find them and what they did. And that wouldn’t be entirely terrible if it had included travel and hunting which would have allowed him both to further exercise his steadily increasing skill at flying and satisfying a margin of his curiosity regarding what the rest of Northrend was like but no. That wasn’t what the lessons were. All they were was him sitting on the still partly frozen floor of Sapphiron’s abandoned lair with an assortment of ingredients spread out in front of him. And all he had to do was point at the right ones in combination. In five hour intervals.

Anduin couldn’t take it anymore.

“If one were trying to reanimate a simplistic construct from a pile of old bones, what would they use in combination with-.”

“Icethorn, Adder’s Tongue, and a pint of blood in precise combination of animal and Human, or other sentient being depended on the race and origin on the bones in question. Or,” he snapped dryly, “a properly advanced Necromancer could simply use Runes carved into a weapon or item or even their own body. Theraldris mentioned it briefly. Can we _please_ do something else?”

The Arch Lich observed him silently for a long moment before responding with practiced, prepared words. He’d probably had complaints from students before: acolytes who’d only recently been inducted into the Cult of the Damned. “Death Magic in general, Necromancy especially, is an inherently dangerous and unstable art. Because of that most understudies don’t even get this far for a handful of years.” He said. “I understand that you’re getting impatient-.”

“Grateful as I am that you’ve cut down on years of time there’s still not enough time to be moving at this pace.” Anduin said. “I’ve always been a quick study, especially with Magic. Maybe that was just the Light acting through me and not my own ability but I’ll be damned if I don’t at least attempt to skip as far ahead as I can.”

“Anduin, we’re all damned.”

The thumb talons keeping his wings cinched at his throat clicked together as he narrowed his red eyes. “That’s beside the point.” He drawled.

“It took me close to a decade to determine how to even partially reanimate small, simplistic creatures for short periods of time.” Kel’thuzad said. “And I was an Arch Mage. Had been practicing the Arcane for close to fifty years before then. It’s almost a certainty that nothing will amount from your efforts.”

“And it’s a certainty nothing will amount from not trying.” Anduin said. “Besides, I think I have a bit of an edge on the you of back then. Arch Mage or not.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Blood King, but didn’t you die while still in training?”

“Still in training to be a _healer_.” He shot back, showing fangs in a half-challenge. “I know all about directing Magic into a body and making it do what I want it to.”

“Asking it to do what you want it to, you mean. True control can’t be had over the Light the way it can over the Arcane, is that not true?”

Anduin snorted. “I didn’t mean to spark a posturing match over whose class is superior.”

“A match you would lose, I’m afraid.” Pressing a bony hand to his brittle chest, Kel’thuzad matter of factly informed him “Mages are inherently the greatest class.”

“Personally, Warriors are more my type.” He purred. “Large. Strong. Forceful. Passionate. Though, admittedly, I only have a certain Dragon who fashioned himself as a Rogue to compare them to…shall we say they’re skillful with their ‘blades’?”

“Somehow I think we’ve diverged in the type of ‘superiority’ that we’re discussing.” His only response was to dissolve into a fit of cackling, which only became worse when the Arch Lich said “if I’m correct about how you’re using the euphemism there are numerous Death Knights who fit that description as well. And many of them used to be Warriors. Mograine, for example, though I’m not certain how able he is with his ‘Rune Blade’.”

“I think that may be keeping a bit closer of an eye on the Ebon Blade than the Lich King wants me to.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘too close of an eye’, Anduin. Not on Blackpyre and not on Mograine.” Mr. Bigglesworth reached up a paw and batted at one of the chains around the Lich. “I suppose there’s little permanent harm in allowing you to attempt to raise something small. If you fail then you’re forced to admit that, bored or not, you need to continue with the material. If you succeed we’re wasting time with this anyway. Does that sound fair?”

“Perfectly.” He shifted on his haunches. “What am I going to have the chance to attempt to prove I’m further ahead than this with?”

Removing one of the flesh bound books from the shelves and flipping through it to the proper page, Kel’thuzad floated back over to where Anduin crouched on the necropolis’ floor and handed it to him. “One of the small spiders in the Arachnid Quarter has died; I’m not sure how but I believe one of my kittens was responsible while learning to become a fearsome hunter.” Etched into the thick yellowed paper by what appeared to be a sharpened bone pen, was a circle of Runes. He recognized some of them as Death Runes but the rest were of the sort that Anduin had never seen before. Written underneath it in the Language of Death was the spell meant to be paired with the circle. “Use the blood in that carafe to copy that onto the floor. Learning the specifics of circles and the interplay and stabilization of Runes will come a bit later. I’ll retrieve the spider while you’re doing that.”

As the Lich drifted back out of the chamber Anduin looked down at the open book once more before reaching for the carafe. It wasn’t terribly fresh, had since gone cold, but the smell was still enough to make his thirst flare and his teeth ache. Dipping two fingers into the dark liquid, feeling a shift in the back of his mind which he’d since learned to associate with the Lich King taking an interest in his activities, Anduin began the process of copying the circle in the book onto the ice and stone. According to Necromantic theory if one was using a circle-and the inexperienced always were-the ideal diameter to apply was six times what was required to draw a circle immediately encompassing the body of the creature being reanimated. If it was much larger than that the amount of energy required to activate the circle would be in excess of the necessary. Any less and it could result in fireworks.

He’d said ‘small spider’ so hopefully Anduin had been correct in assuming that meant the palm sized ones he’d seen crawling around on the floor and not the wolf sized ones sometimes found in mines.

“You’ll need a bit of practice to get the shapes of those Runes exact, but for a first attempt it’s more than workable.” The Arch Lich dropped the spider into the center of the circle. “Feel free to begin at your leisure, Anduin.”

Draping the tome across his lap, reading the spell over once more, Anduin drew on that tar like power which coiled around his spine, darker and colder than even the shadow, which he’d been gifted by the Lich King. Pulled it to his fingertips and into the blood which formed the circle. Forcing it into the tiny, arachnid body sitting in the center.

That was where he hit a road block. Through healing, he’d become intimately familiar with flesh and blood and how the internal structures of a body worked. He’d worked with Humans, Night Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, Worgen, Draeni, Pandaren and a certain insolent Dragon whelp all of which had been built of bone and muscle and closed capillaries. He’d never worked with animals. Certainly not with Arachnids. Wasn’t familiar with exoskeletons or open circulation and had no idea where to begin.

Releasing his grip on the spell with a small scowl, Anduin sat back and cocked his head. He was certain that he could manage to reanimate something, at least for a short period, but in order to do that he needed to understand the internal mechanisms of the thing he was working with. At least on a basic level.

Maybe that was why Necromancy wasn’t usually approached from a Healer’s perspective.

“Would you like to try again,” the Arch Lich stroked the Birman around his shoulders, “or do you concede-?”

**Present him with something more familiar.**

“With respect, Master, what do you mean by ‘familiar’?” a strangled grunt echoed up from the portal moments before a geist bounded into view, skidding slightly on the icy floor as it slid to a stop. “Oh, of course. You’d be used to healing Humanoids wouldn’t you?” the lesser undead faired about as well as the spider which had been crawling around on Anduin’s back the day he’d toured Naxxramas had against Kel’thuzad’s Frost Magic and dropped with a thump. “Up for another attempt?”

Instead of verbally replying Anduin picked up the carafe and redrew the circle on a larger scale before repeating the process from before. Drawing on the darkness. Forcing it into the now far more familiar body. Pushing the fizzling Magic along collapsed veins and willing the desiccated form back onto its feet.

It wasn’t easily done, a great deal closer to pulling teeth than to any magic should be to an able practitioner, but after almost two minutes of sustained effort the geist dragged itself back onto its knees and bounded out of the circle. It only got about half way across the room before it collapsed again and Anduin wasn’t very far behind, sagging to the floor with a huff.

Kel’thuzad’s mild surprise failed to register. “Though clearly not a sustainable or affective method you managed. And a deal is a deal.” He said. “The need to teach you the proper method of going about preforming Necromancy aside, being that it’s another problem all together, in order to move on to more advanced subjects in the field you’ll need to have at least a journeyman knowledge of Runes.”

“Which means I get to visit the Ebon Hold?” he asked, sitting up with some difficulty. “Shall I ask Darion, on your behalf, whether or not he’s good with his Rune blade?”

“Asking on your own behalf would be a better learning experience, though it’s unlikely you’ll learn much. Given that he’s a Northerner the euphemism behind that phrase is unlikely to register.” The Arch Lich informed him. “I won’t be sending you to Acherus right away, though. Not only do you clearly need rest, having overextended yourself, but sending you up without a few hours warning may institute a more hostile reaction than would otherwise occur and neither of us want that.”

“Out to make me nervous about this, aren’t you?” rolling up onto all fours and pushing himself back onto his feet, Anduin stretched in an effort to keep the unwelcome weight of his need to rest-it was such an unnatural sensation in his current circumstance-and said “I’ll head back to the Crimson Halls, then. If I don’t get chased back into the Military Quarter like you apparently expect me to be, Uncle, I’ll see you when our lessons resume.”

“I’ll expect you to be able to keep up with my advanced classes, Blood King.” More teasing than reprimanding. “Someone will be around to check in on Googles.” That sounded almost like a threat.

Rolling his crimson eyes, Anduin grumbled an only half-annoyed “I haven’t eaten her” before ducking through the teleporter, taking flight once on the Rampart of Skulls and gliding back through the Citadel to the Crimson Halls. His Dark Fallen greeted him with nods and bows and he paused long enough to communicate his wish not to be disturbed before continuing to the upper floor. The chamber had belonged to Lana’thel, once, and now that it was his certain alterations had been made largely for the sake bringing in the colors representative of his Kingdom. He wasn’t there enough to pay the furnishings any true mind.

Alighting on the cold Saronite floor he removed his shoulder piece and discarded it on the ground before proceeding to the sprawling bed-couch on foot and dropping gracelessly onto the thick cushions. The thumb talons on his wings fumbled amongst the pillow for a while before finding comforting purchase against the plush fabric he’d burrowed himself beneath. The heavy blanket of sleep descended over him a moment later but peace did not come with it.


	10. The Beginnings of a Lasting Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Anduin and Leryssa are similar enough in personality that if they ever met they'd become friends and quickly end up aiding and abetting each other in causing trouble. They've met now. 
> 
> There's potentially a lot of typos in this one since it's late and I'm tired; I'll go back over it again later but until then sorry about that.

“Snuggles.” It was probably a testament to Kel’thuzad’s naming ability that a necropolis full of Necromancers didn’t so much as bat an eye at the fact that she was wandering around calling out words which no one in their right might would ever think to associate with death or destruction or anything even mildly frightening. “Snuggles.”

Leryssa would have to admit that she hadn’t really wanted to become a Necromancer or an Acolyte of the Cult of the Damned, not that she would ever have been a very affective one given that she’d never had a lick of Magic in her to begin with, she was more than willing to go through with whatever she had to in order to prevent what was left of her family from falling apart again. The Death Lord’s suggestion had been something of a life saver-perhaps that was a slight exaggeration-and in the week which had passed since her arrival in Northrend the time she’d spent caring for Mr. and Mrs. Bigglesworth’s most recent liter had provided her with an intimate knowledge of the layout of Naxxramas largely owing to the fact that her little charges enjoyed scattering throughout the building and wedging themselves into the strangest places.

Something small and furry leapt from behind a cauldron and stayed in sight long enough to bat at the tail of her cloak before skittering around another corner and out of sight. “Snuggles, come back!”

Four stubby legs luckily didn’t amount to their owner being very fast and Leryssa easily caught up with the Birman. Scooping the protesting feline into her arms, she turned and headed back the way she’d come.

“Terrible as it is to be shut up in one room all of the time you’re not going to give him much recourse if you and your siblings keep scattering like marbles every time he turns around.”

The chocolate point kitten turned his head for enough around to fix her in an unimpressed glare, short tail flicking an annoyed pattern against her wrists.

“I’m sure terrorizing the Plague Quarter but if you’re not careful Heigan will mistake your constant presence as a request for dance lessons.” Taciturn as Noth could be Leryssa largely preferred him over the other Necromancer: even setting aside his obsession with eternally improving what he referred to simply as the ‘Safety Dance’, the man was certifiably insane. “I’m sure you’ve seen some of what his idea of dancing is: neither of us wants that.”

A low grumble met that response but the kitten stopped squirming, reluctantly settling himself in her arms. Resigned to being carried back up through Sapphiron’s lair to Kel’thuzad’s throne room and letting him down. With one last glare and a flick of his tail Snuggles trotted over to his pile of siblings and was soon absorbed into the purring mass.

“And we’ve already determined precisely who the problem child is.” The Lich _tsk_ ed in the vague direction of the kitten-she had the distinct feeling that Snuggles didn’t really care-and slipped a flesh bound tome back into its proper place on a shelf. Given that she’d passed a circle on the ground in Sapphiron’s Lair it seemed like he’d just gotten done teaching a lesson to someone. “Thank you for retrieving him, Leryssa. And, please, inform your brother when next you see him to thank the Death Lord for suggesting such an able Cat Keeper.”

“It’s far from the most demanding job.” Usually. “Thank you for saying so regardless, though. They’re hardly any trouble but I do appreciate it.”

“Undemanding, perhaps, but important all the same. And it’s important that such jobs not be left thankless.” He turned from the shelf, folding long fingers in front of his skeletal form. “I do have another task for you. The Blood King should have fallen asleep by now so it’s unlikely he’ll make any fuss about my not trusting him. Could you please visit the Crimson Hall and check on Googles for me? I’m sure that she’s fine but…just to be completely certain.”

Thassarian had told her that she was not to go gallivanting around Icecrown Citadel, presumably because it was dangerous to do so, but seeing as she was the resident Cat Keeper and doing so fell under her job description even if he found her he couldn’t really complain. “Of course.” She said. “A chance to see more of the Citadel is welcome. Should I expect to have to search the entire building for her?”

“No, no. He keeps her in the Crimson Hall so you won’t need to worry about having to travel too far. I’d have sent someone else if that would have been necessary.” The Arch Lich said. “For the time being at least the Scourge and Ebon Blade are friends and I’d rather avoid finding myself at sword point on account of your over protective brother taking exception to a job I’d assigned you.”

As long as she didn’t find herself in any physical danger she doubted Thassarian would go that far.

“One last thing before you go, Leryssa.” He said. “Do try not to wake him. New as he is to his unlife, and given the nature of what he is, I’m not certain how he’ll react to having a living person so close. If disturbed, he may attempt to eat you.”

Surely that was a joke, at least to some degree. Either way, don’t disturb the ‘Blood King’: point taken. “What exactly does checking on Googles amount to?”

“Making sure that she’s still alive, largely. That she’s being fed correctly.” He said. “It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. In and out. Completely safe. Just don’t make eye contact with any of the Dark Fallen and you’ll be fine.”

Every job came with its own set of risks. The risk which came with hers was, apparently, a Faction of Vampiric Blood Elves.

There were worse things.

“I’ll go check on her now. When would you like word on Googles?”

The former Mage seemed to consider the question briefly before answering. “Don’t send word unless it’s bad.” He said. “I do trust him, and he promised that he wouldn’t eat her, but…parents worry.”

If there’d been any doubt before that the Arch Lich of the Scourge was a crazy cat man…maybe things had been different under Arthas, but the more time she spent with the Scourge the less blatantly terrifying they became. Leaving Kel’thuzad behind to manage his ‘children’ alone for a while Leryssa took the teleporter back down to the center point and stepped out onto the Rampart of Skulls.

One thing which certainly hadn’t changed in the five years since she’d last been in Northrend was the weather. She’d thought that Valiance Keep had been cold but she’d been wrong: the Borean Tundra had absolutely nothing on Icecrown Glacier and the whipping wind cut clear through to the bone even in spite of the fur lined clothing and multiple layers she had on. Inside of the Citadel, away from the reach of the wintery storms, it wasn’t all that much better.

For the undead, Leryssa could understand the appeal. Frozen flesh, after all, didn’t decay nearly as fast.

It was easy to see where the Crimson Hall had gotten its name: diaphanous tongues of fabric hung in veils throughout the rooms and hallways, accentuated by the scarlet stained glass of the false windows and the lich fire burning like stars against the heavy chandeliers which hung from the vaulted ceilings. The Dark Fallen, much fewer in number now than they had been prior to the Ashen Verdict’s purge of the Citadel, fell silent at the sight of her. Their cold, baleful gaze following along in her wake as she moved among them, keeping her own eyes on her feet and trying to keep memories of Naxxanar at bay. The sooner that she found the-presumably-sleeping Blood King and confirmed that Googles was both with him and in good health the sooner she could leave.

The hallway she’d chosen curved upwards in a gentle slope, the number of San’layn she saw rapidly decreasing down to zero as the top floor and the Blood Monarch’s chamber drew closer. The Crimson Hall’s second floor consisted of a single large, dim room lit yet again by a chandelier of low burning lich fire. Tongues of the same red fabric hung down along the walls, though they were now notably joined by similar banners in tones of blue and gold. Discarded on the ground was a spaulder formed into the same horned skull the Scourge seemed so found of using as brackets and decoration. At the center of the chamber was a large bed-couch and in the center of the bed couch sat the kitten she was looking for, purring like a motor while tucked into the rigid crook of one of the wings belonging to a quivering Human form. A very recognizable Human form.

“By the Light.” Thassarian’s evasive reaction to Shaw’s questioning about where he’d gone between Stormwind and Ironforge. The concluding conversation between Darion Mograine and the Death Lord which they’d walked in on. All of it made a sudden striking sense. The San’layn curled in front of her, shaking in the talons of a nightmare which streaked his face with bloody tears, was Stormwind’s ‘dead’ King.

Before the attack on the capital city of the Alliance, when he barreled through the door of her clothing shop with the Spymaster and a growing train of panicked citizens behind him, clad in the tolling of alarm bells and with Shalamayne on his hip to alert both her and Sophie Farnam to the need to flee to safety, Leryssa had only seen him briefly and on rare occasion. A Prince, back then. Only a few years younger than her; a peace maker in the shadow of his Warrior father. There had been rumors of discontent among some in Stormwind after he’d taken the throne-loved as he was there had been concerns he might be too gentle to stand against the Legion-but if the display at the tram where he’d bucked Shaw’s hold like a wild horse and run back into the line of fire had shown anything it was that those concerns had been needless. Though wrapped in layers of satin, Anduin Wrynn had been made of the same steel as his father.

What was he doing here? Why had he been transformed into something so terrible? Was the rest of Stormwind somewhere in Icecrown Citadel too? She needed to check on the cat and get out of there so she could hunt down and interrogate Thassarian on precisely what had happened surrounding this latest development of what had taken place on the night of the attack.

 The bed-couch that the Blood-King was lying on-and, really, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was shaking like a leaf he’d have looked like a corpse given that he wasn’t breathing-was much too large for her to successfully grab Googles off of without climbing onto the bed herself which was a recourse she’d rather avoid. Having to call the kitten and risk waking the San’layn in front of her wasn’t exactly ideal either but it was the better option of the two of them.

Kneeling down at the edge of the bed, Leryssa reached towards the kitten and gently clicked her nails together. “Googles.” Carefully, quietly, but still enough to make him twitch. “Googles, come here kitty.”

The Birman turned her head to look, blinked with half lidded eyes and didn’t move.

“Googles.” Hissed, now. Slightly more urgently. The kitten licked her chops and stretched her claws. With a quiet grumble Anduin burrowed his face deeper beneath a golden cushion which appeared over inflated to the point of bursting at any moment. “Goo-by the bleeding Light, fine!”

Left with absolutely no other recourse seeing as the kitten obviously had no intent what so ever of moving from the nest she’d made half beneath Anduin’s right wing Leryssa steeled herself and began the delicate process of picking her way across the piece of furniture which itself seemed intent on eating her to retrieve the feline without waking the Birman’s owner.

She managed to make it to the kitten without incident, only to have Googles scoot out of reach beneath the wing she’d already been partially sheltered under. This was the point at which most people would probably have given up the matter and just left the job half done but, much like her older brother, Leryssa was a fair bit more stubborn than your average ‘normal’ person.

Muttering a swear under her breath, mentally cursing the little ball of fluff which had put her into a potentially dangerous situation, she reached out with shaking hands to lift the wing from where it lay against the sheets. It was heavier than it looked, comparatively easy to gather and lifted in its half folded state than it would have been stretched to its full span, cold like the dead flesh that it was and with the texture of the fine leather she’d sometimes worked with in the shop. Armor had been screwed into the bone from base to elbow; an artful overlap of blue and gold. The thumb talon, about the length of her hand, caught on the mattress with a sharp popping sound and the wing she was holding lifted free of her grip. The San’layn rousing with a sleepy sounding noise and pushing himself upright, pawing at his wet face in what looked like surprise. Sudden movements in the presence of a predator were not wise so instead of heading the instinct to bolt Leryssa went very still. Hoping, somehow, that lack of motion would prevent him from taking notice of her presence.

From the angle at which she was now observing him, and owing largely to her panic, her attention focused on his ears. Pointed at the tips: nothing like that of an elf’s or half-elf’s but still noticeable.

“Let me guess,” he grumbled, “Kel’thuzad sent you to check on Googles and attempted to scare you out of your wits about waking me up so that I wouldn’t-.” cutting himself off, he blinked at her with red eyes which were still somewhat bleary. “I’m sorry, have we met before? You look familiar but, for the life of me, if I know your name I can’t place it.”

“Leryssa. We met, if you can even call it meeting, when you and Shaw busted down the door of my shop to drag us to the tram.”

As he matched her face to the appropriate memory comprehension dawned across his features, slightly twisted by the overbite of long fangs which jutted down over black lips. “So they made it, then. That’s good.” Sorrow reached its icy fingers across the King’s face, already marred by the dark trails of tear tracks. His shoulder curled inward, followed along by the sweep of his wings. “At least some of my people survived my mistakes.”

Leryssa couldn’t speak to knowing Anduin Wrynn well but the instant fixation on that particular detail of what her presence meant spoke to him being very much himself despite the changes. Or, at least, as much himself as he could be. There was something about the undead, something which made them fundamentally different from the living, something they lost which made them never quite able to be as they once had been no matter how hard they tried.

She’d noticed it with her brother too.

Anduin nearly hit the ceiling when Leryssa set a hand against his shoulder and, to be honest, she’d be lying if she attempted to say she wasn’t surprised by the action herself. It was one that she’d made without thought, her time around Thassarian and on Naxxramas perhaps having made her dangerously complacent around all undead, but it was the only thing which sprung to mind that might offer some form of comfort.

“Everything I’ve ever heard said about you made it clear that you lived for your people.” She said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened.”

“You’re not the first to tell me that.” He said after a breath of silence. “I doubt you’ll be the last.” His hand came up; the talons on his thin fingers glinting like steel. Her first assumption was that he sought to free himself from her grip but all he did was rest his fingertips against her skin. Idly tracing small circles as if fascinated by the warmth he no longer had. “But recitation doesn’t make something true.” His motion was abrupt but still fluid, graceful. Rising from the bed-couch and scooping the kitten into his arms as he did so. The Blood King cleared his throat and turned back to her, tone kept carefully emotionless but a hungry shadow stirred in his eyes. “Will the fair lady accompany me while I deliver to my ‘uncle’ an unharmed kitten and a small piece of my mind?”

In that moment, entirely to her alarm, the gravity of the situation she could have gotten herself into dawned on her. He was San’layn, recently raised, and she was sitting in the middle of his bed. As much as he’d made a point of calling Kel’thuzad’s warnings an attempt to ‘scare her out of her wits’ it had been legitimate and it was likely only the disciplined control over himself and his desires he’d learned to exercise as a Priest that had saved her from being bitten or worse.

Hurriedly, though doing her best not to make the fact obvious, she scrambled off the bed and onto her feet. “He only wanted a report if there was bad news.”

“Good,” San’layn chirped, already heading towards the right door of the chamber, “because the Arch Lich isn’t getting a ‘report’, is he?”

“Mew!” Googles hooked her claws into the scaling of the gorget which dripped down over his chest and pulled herself onto his shoulder, perching there like some exotic breed of parrot. Anduin scratched behind her ears and the Birman butted her head against his hand.

“I take perfectly good care of you, don’t I?”

“Mow.”

Covering a snicker with her hand, Leryssa followed Anduin down the slanting hallway. “Can I trade you Googles for Snuggles? He gives me so much trouble that it’s mildly ridiculous.”

“Mrow!”

“I think Googles is a bit too territorial for that to end well.” He said, smoothing down the kitten’s on end fur. “So you’re the Cat Keeper that Kel’thuzad’s been mentioning intermittently throughout the week? We’ve just missed each other on a handful of occasions before today. How are you finding Icecrown?”

He looked awkward on the ground with his large wings crumpled and dragging along the saronite floor but with the way he was talking-as if she’d only just arrived in Stormwind and he was inquiring about how she was finding the sights of his city-made it easy to imagine that the Citadel’s walls were the white stone of the Keep and he was still the burning, burnished man with his whole life ahead of him she’d seen fighting against the Spymaster’s grip in the tram station instead of the stitched and bloodless shade in front of her, frozen in time.

Eighteen. So young. Too young.

“I haven’t really been off Naxxramas often.” She told him. “Part of my brother agreeing to take me along was that I wouldn’t go wandering around.”

“So you have a habit of scooting off at inconvenient times as well, do you? Off getting into trouble while meaning well, more often than not through fault of the fact that an overprotective family member is blocking the straightest safest avenue to what you’re hoping to achieve out of the belief that they’re protecting you?”

“I suppose that’s confirmation that we have that much in common, King Wrynn.”

“Call me Anduin, please. There’s little point in formality now.” A measure of that sadness returned, clinging to Anduin the way that vengeance had to her brother until Arthas had finally been dethroned. Yet more evidence that, for the undead, emotion didn’t come or go easily.

“Anduin.”

The corner of his lips twitched. “I’ve gotten up to considerable trouble myself. Gave my father, the royal guard, half of Stormwind’s army and most of the Alliance’s adventurers premature grey hairs. Especially with what happened in Pandaria.” He chuckled. Googles pawed at a stray lock of hair which had escaped from behind his ear. “I haven’t seen much of the Citadel either, mostly because I’ve had my nose to the grindstone preparing for war.”

“War?”

Red eyes caught her in a pinning gaze. “The Horde must pay for what they’ve done. By the Lich King’s will and my hand, Sylvanas will suffer for what she’s done to my people.”

The teleporter dropped them out on the Rampart of skulls in a burst of frozen winds, the shock of cold blowing all thoughts of further conversation on the matter away. Though himself unbothered by the cold, the Blood King lifted the kitten down from his shoulders and formed a wind break with his wings. Leryssa pulled her winter cloak tighter around her body and headed for the entrance to the necropolis at a run.

Despite his lack of facial musculature Kel’thuzad looked somewhat surprised to see Anduin standing in his throne room, casting him in a mild glare. Googles mewed and mimicked him.

“I do not eat cats.”

“You’ve admitted that you’ve never had a pet before,” the Arch Lich said. “You can’t blame me for worrying about your ability to care for her. They’re my babies and I worry for them.”

Sighing Anduin set Googles on the floor so that she could join her siblings. The kitten remained stubbornly where she was, sitting down on one of his feet. “Well, you can see that Googles is fine and is perfectly happy to continue owning me for the time being. Now do you believe that she’s fine? There are plenty of other things of more importance with which you could concern yourself.”

“Only one who’s never been a parent could think that one who has will ever find something of more importance than their children.” He shook his head, the movement purposefully exaggerated. “But, as Googles seems appropriately approving of you, I’ll make an effort to restrain my concerns.”

“Thank the Light.”

“Also, you may be interested to hear that Kiara is ready to have you visit Acherus at your leisure, Blood King. Do tell me Mograine’s response to your question.”

“What question?” Leryssa asked curiously.

Even with his massive fangs his smirk still looked more playful than threatening. “Just a mild curiosity regarding the former High Lord’s prowess with his Rune Blade.”

“Arthas named him High Lord of the Ebon Hold so surely he must-,” noticing the pair’s snickering, exactly what his words had been meant to suggest snapped into place and she snorted. “Tell me too. Thassarian and Koltira get up to a lot, of that much I’m well aware, but I don’t think Darion bother’s getting that kind of practice.”

“Five years in Stormwind seems to have tarnished her prudish Northern ways.” The Arch Lich sounded halfway gleeful, his teeth clicking together. “Then again, considering who she’s related to, she may have just been a bad Northerner to begin with.”

“There are worse things to be: better to have a handful of annual ‘purge’ days than to lace yourself up so tight you bust a seam.” Anduin said. “Once I have an answer, Leryssa, I’ll be sure to clue you in. In all the detail I can?”

“That, Anduin, sounds marvelous.” Even if she was going on twenty five there was just a certain something about acting like a gossipy teenager that was impossible to resist. “Good luck getting him to ‘bust that seam’.”

“I don’t need luck,” he told her with a last cheeky grin before ducking back through the teleporter, “all I need is time.”


	11. The Blood King and the Fourth Horseman

Unlike Naxxramas, Acherus was not currently docked along the Citadel’s spined, imposing ramparts likely owing largely to a want to cut down on ease of access for the Scourge and any Acolytes wandering in to the wrong necropolis. Anduin had seen it often enough during his flight lessons to know where it was and so didn’t need to worry about flying across the entire glacier in search of it or asking for directions; he left the Citadel immediately once outside of Naxxramas again and soared out across the Court of Bones, over Corp’rethar and towards the dark shape hanging above the Valley of Fallen Heroes.

Once, the massive forms of the Skybreaker and Orgrimm’s Hammer had circled these frigid skies like giant bats, casting their shadows long across what had then been Arthas’ domain. Firing at each other whenever they came within range: wasting precious ammunition and lives and resources for repairs when they should have been worrying about their mutual enemy. The Scourge. The Twilight’s Hammer. Deathwing. The Legion. All threats which had forced them together in order to defend their world. All threats which should have led to the forging of bonds which should have stopped the fighting. All threats which had failed to do anything more than push the inter-Faction conflict into an ever escalating spiral.

Life had made him a soft hearted fool. Death had made him pragmatic. Peace may have been a noble aspiration, one as worth fighting for as anything else, but if Black Dragons and the Burning Legion and the Lich King and the Old Gods and the Iron Horde and even Sargeras himself couldn’t bring about the epiphany that coexistence was possible than nothing could. One Faction would inevitably have to either destroy or absorb the other. It shouldn’t have taken the massacre of his people to open his eyes to that reality.

But it had. Just another notch among many to be carved into his long list of failures. He’d been so wrapped up in morality and values to which even he hadn’t been able to adhere that it had blinded him to the simple fact that war could only end if both sides stopped fighting. While he had prayed to the Light for a reprieve of even just days in the wake of the Legion’s retreat Sylvanas had wasted no time in transforming Azeroth’s blood into a weapon of untold destruction. There never would have been peace through armistice when the Banshee Queen’s Horde held such annihilating power. Dismantling them would ultimately have been the only option, but doing so could have happened smartly. Through cunning and guile instead of the brute force Genn had goaded him into. Tugging at the Blood Elves’ reasons for their near decision to leave the Horde prior to the incident with the Divine Bell. Paying off the Goblins. Reminding the Orcs of the Forsaken’s untrustworthy track record. As for the Tauren…Baine had been his friend.

Had the Chieftain of Thunder bluff known? Had he protested? Kept silent to protect his own people? Agreed? Rage and pain boiled in his chest and Anduin snarled into the wind, bringing his wings down harder and sailing forward at greater speed. All that mattered now was raising the fallen among his people to join his San’layn, avenging themselves on the Horde-no, the Horde alone wasn’t good enough; all those who stood accomplice through silence needed to pay as well-and protecting the survivors whom had made it to Ironforge. He didn’t even truly care about the Alliance as a whole any longer: the Scourge didn’t need them; their help against the Horde was mere convenience. They’d be offered the choice to come along but if they didn’t agree it didn’t matter. As long as he got his people to the North the rest of Azeroth could burn.

“You’ve certainly improved, Blood King.” Anduin turned his head at the sound of the Dragon’s hissing voice. Chilblains swooped in from his right, his icy horns glinting in the dim light. “It’s almost believable that you were never ground bound. The Lich sent you out for another lesson?”

“I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.” Anduin adjusted his grip on Googles and began a steady climb as the Ebon Hold drew closer. “At the moment I’m headed to an appointment with the Death Lord.”

The Frost Wyrm grunted, spindles of frost spewing from his ragged nasal cavity. “When the Ebon Knights prove themselves incompetent I expect you over the Valley of Lost Hope. We’ll start in on war maneuvers.”

As always the Dragon vanished almost instantly into the driving snow. Anduin continued onwards, reaching Acherus a moment later. Pulling his wings up to lift himself over the balcony and landing on the black tiles in a swirl of rime, he cinched the thumb talons at his throat. Googles reclaimed her perch on his shoulder and began the thorough process of cleaning her paws.

“Considering the spectacle you’re rumored to have made when the Arch Lich tossed you off Naxxramas you seem to have made progress in using those wings.” A metallic voice drawled from nearby. Turning his head, he met the gaze of a bored looking elf who wore his long hair up in a silvered pony tail. “Even still, any one of my Griffins could outstrip you.”

What a charming way to greet someone you’d never seen before. “On another day, when I’ve the time, perhaps we can test that.” He took care to keep his words barbed. “Who are you?”

The choice seemed to have been the right one because the elf smirked in response. “Wing Commander Thalanor.” He said. “The Death Lord will see you: take the teleporter at the bottom of the stairs.” Receiving him had, apparently, been the Death Knight’s assigned job as, as soon as he was done informing him of such, he turned on one plated heel and clattered away.

“Mee?”

Anduin sighed, brushed snow from the kitten’s fur and trotted down the staircase in front of him, taking the teleporter that he found there down to the first floor.

Acherus looked nothing like Naxxramas on the inside. Where Kel’thuzad’s necropolis had been divided into four specific Quarters each with their own set focus the Ebon Hold was built of two comparatively open levels. On the upper floor, which he’d only seen briefly, had been a training pit filled with targets a number of forges and what might have been a makeshift Trade District. On the floor which he now stood a slopping stone walkway, passing a circular corridor which clung to Acherus’ walls, led down to a small chamber at the center of which stood a war table.

The Blood Elf standing beside it looked up at his approach and broke her feet free of the layer of ice which had formed across the ground. She nodded in greeting, her expression kept outwardly bland. “Blood King Wrynn.”

“Death Lord Blackpyre.” He said. “I was told that you were at least aware that I’d be coming, if not that I’d be arriving so soon?”

There was another Death Knight standing not far from the war table, leaned against the railing of the partially open chamber in the necropolis’ belly. Despite being drenched in the near shadows of the structure Anduin was able to recognize the Ebon Blade’s former High Lord by his armor. Darion was staring at him with cold eyes, but the expression he had was unreadable behind the saronite face plate of his helm.

“We hadn’t originally planned to host you for training quite so soon but it would have been no more or less trouble then than it is for us now.” Anduin had been himself a diplomat for long enough to recognize when someone was offering platitudes to him in turn. To her credit, she was upfront about it. “I haven’t met you personally prior to now but I’ve heard a considerable deal about you, both good and bad, and understand that you mean a great deal to the Lich King. I hope you find your stay here on Acherus to be, if nothing else, informative.”

“I’ve heard a considerable deal about you as well, Death Lord.” Briefly his gaze lowered to the blades at her belt: a pair of sleek black swords with glowing blue Runes down their sides. All that remained of Arthas’ terrible blade. “I’d like to thank you. For trying to spare my people what came to befall them. For risking yours by breaking your Order’s neutrality, though perhaps that break has yet to be realized. For all it may be worth, you’ve both my respect and heartfelt gratitude.”

“Coming from the Prince of the Scourge, King of the Crimson Halls, I’d say that’s worth a lot if it’s a card played at the proper time and against the proper people.” She glanced down at the war table in front of her and adjusted the positioning of one of the pins. “Darion here has agreed to take you on as a project. I hear you’ve met before?”

“Briefly.” Once at the Tournament grounds and once not long after his father’s death, though the exact circumstances escaped him now. Back then the fourth Horseman had simply regarded him as he would have anyone else: nothing beyond a mild distrust but disinterest. Now he regarded him with the same sort of judgement he’d expected to see afforded to a dangerous animal which had just attempted to eat a close family member.

Anduin was beginning to get the feeling Kel’thuzad’s statement about offense hadn’t been as general as he’d originally thought.

“He’s the best Acherus has to offer and if anyone can find a way to work around your inability with a weapon it’s him.” The Death Lord said. “I expect the two of you to get along, at least to the point of interacting with something verging on civility. If any real fighting does become necessary take it to Naxxramas: Kel’thuzad has more time to pick up messes than I do.”

“I’ve retained my good manners.” It was difficult to forget what a Black Dragon deigned to physically beat into you as a child. “I’ll be on my best behavior and will pay close attention to my teacher. Which reminds me: I have a question. The answer to which I’m not the only one interested in knowing.”

The most important thing he’d learned from his torture under Lady Prestor’s reign of Stormwind and had perfected using Wrathion as a sounding board was that, often times, the most effective method of retaliation against a foe-be they an outright terrorizer or merely a figure intent on pigeonholing him-was to seek out their weaknesses and drive them up a wall with words alone. With Wrathion is had been his age. With Garrosh, well, he wasn’t sure what element of his verbal prodding had been the one to get through to the mad Orc enough to ‘earn his respect’. With Onyxia…all he’d had to do to upset her was breathe.

Two out of three times the result had been to his advantage, and even if it wasn’t this time it would at least afford some-mildly-good natured entertainment. At this point, with the former High Lord of the Ebon Blade, Anduin doubted he had anywhere to go but up.

“Yes?” clinical beneath the metallic scratch which accompanied the voices of all Death Knights.

“Just how good are you with your Runeblade?” it came out perfectly innocent but the Death Lord still had to stifle a snort.

“Your question is redundant.” The Death Knight’s tattered cloak snapped against the ground as he brushed passed him. “Once we get around to sparring you’ll find out for yourself, Blood King.”

“I’ve never made an attempt at exhibitionism before.” He looked over at Kiara only to find her shaking her head. “Should be interesting. Does that sort of thing happen often around here?”

“I may be wrong, but I don’t think he has that sort of training.” She said. “Humans from the Northern Kingdoms are thick. It’s best you follow him before he comes back to drag you away.”

Considering that the undead differed from the living on their standards of ‘rough’ Anduin had little doubt he would end up getting carted around if he lingered. And once it started it was unlikely to stop; after all, what easier way was there to keep an eye on someone than to physically have a hold of them.

The Horseman hadn’t gone far, though Anduin couldn’t help but notice he was well out of ear shot, and stood waiting for him at the left mouth of the circular corridor with something approaching impatience. Before he could move from where he stood the Death Lord called his attention back.

“Wrynn.” The icy warning in her words was starkly clear, the Runes along her blades glowing brighter than before. “A bit of ribbing in good nature is fine. Biting back is fine. But he’s done more for this Order and suffered more to end up here than any of the rest of us and the Ebon Blade is a family. Hurt him and we’ll all be on you.”

Family was something Wrynns understood. Briefly, memories of his father flashed before his eyes, a pained smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “All in good fun.”

“It had better be.” Her stance relaxed, gauntlets clanging against the lip of the war table. “Go.”

With Googles purring atop his shoulders, draped over the back of his neck in the best impression of Mr. Bigglesworth she could manage at her size, Anduin nodded to the Death Lord once more before starting up the walkway towards where Darion stood waiting.


	12. Important Note

Just a real quick update on the state of Blood of Lions. When I started this fic I kind of made the mistake of having no idea where I was going with it and that inevitably led me to running into something of a wall. At this point with the way things are I don’t know how I’d progress the current state of events within this story but I don’t want to abandon it, so I’m going to be rewriting it with the core ideas still largely intact but with a more solid foundation and an actual direction I want to go in.

If anyone would like to help me out by reading over the basic outline I’m drawing up when its complete the email you can get into touch with me with is in my profile or you could just post up a comment saying as much on here; whichever works best for you. Thanks for your patience.


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